Culture observation apparatus and culture observation system

Abstract

An object is to lessen a troublesome checking task during cell culturing. A culture observation apparatus of the present invention includes: a light source unit that radiates illumination light onto the inside of a transparent culture vessel from a side surface of the culture vessel; an image acquisition unit that images, of the illumination light radiated from the light source unit, scattered light emitted from the inside of the culture vessel to acquire images; and a transmission unit that sends the images acquired by the image acquisition unit to the outside. The image acquisition unit includes a sensor array that has a plurality of sensors arranged in at least one line over approximately the entire length in one direction of a bottom surface of the culture vessel and a movement mechanism that relatively moves the sensor array and the culture vessel in a direction intersecting the array direction of the sensors and extending along the bottom surface.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.