Cell observing apparatus and cell incubation method

A cell observing apparatus, comprising:

• an observation stage to support an incubation container that houses cells;
• a micro imaging optical system to, when the incubation container is supported by the observation stage and is disposed at an observing position of the observation stage, form, on an imaging device for micro imaging, an image of the cells in the incubation container;
• a macro imaging optical system to, when the incubation container is supported by the observation stage and is disposed at the observing position of the observation stage, form, on an imaging device for macro imaging, an image of an area wider than that captured by the micro imaging optical system in the incubation container;
• an oblique illuminating optical system to, when the incubation container is supported by the observation stage and is disposed at the observing position, illuminate the incubation container with an illumination luminous flux which is not parallel to optical axes of the macro imaging optical system and the micro imaging optical system and which thereby illuminates the incubation container so that the image formed by the macro imaging optical system and the image formed by the micro imaging optical system are formed simultaneously;
• and
• a controlling unit to control an operation of a manipulation needle that manipulates the cells in the incubation container.

A cell incubation method of incubating cells, comprising:

• micro imaging that performs a micro observation of a cell which is being incubated in a first incubation container, to obtain a partial image;
• macro imaging that performs a macro observation of an area wider than that in said micro imaging in the first incubation container, to obtain a wide image;
• judging that judges whether a state of the cell is good, based on the partial image;
• picking that, when said judging judges that the state of the cell is good, controls, based on the wide image and the partial image, a manipulation needle to perform a picking up of the cell from the first incubation container;
• seeding the cell picked up by the manipulation needle, in a second incubation container, and then transferring the second incubation container to an incubator;
• incubating that incubates the seeded cell in the incubator for a certain period of time;
• and
• for each of a plurality of respective cells being incubated in the first incubation container, repeating said micro imaging, said macro imaging, said judging, said picking, said seeding and said incubating, to thereby increase a number of cells judged to be good being incubated in the incubator.