Microscope and Method for Determining a Distance to a Sample Reference Plane

A microscope with a distance determination system, the distance determination system comprising

• a sample stage for a sample carrier;
• a camera aimed at the sample stage;
• an evaluation unit, which is connected to the camera, the evaluation unit comprising:
• a) a data storage system for storing an overview image of the sample carrier at the sample stage;
• b) a trained machine learning model, wherein the trained machine learning model includes a trained reference model that is trained by a set of annotated training images of sample carriers and thus configured so that a characteristic of the sample carrier is detectable in the captured overview image;
• and
• c) a distance determination unit adapted to determine a distance of a sample reference plane from a reference plane of the microscope based on the detected characteristic of the sample carrier at the sample stage and associated contextual data.