Abstract: A light sheet microscope for illuminating a sample arranged in an object plane on a sample carrier, comprising: an illumination device having an objective for illuminating the sample via an illumination beam path with a first light sheet, which intersects the sample volume in a first light sheet plane, the first light sheet plane intersecting the object plane at a skew first illumination angle (?), and a detection device for imaging of light coming from the sample, having an objective, the focal plane lying in the sample volume parallel to or in the object plane, and an area detector having a detector plane. The area detector includes a first slit stop in the detection beam path upstream of the area detector so as to mask out such regions of the sample volume which are illuminated by the first light sheet but lie outside the focal plane of the detection objective.