Provided is a culturing observation apparatus including: a light source portion that radiates illumination light into a culturing container, in which cells are being cultured, from a side surface of the culturing container, which is optically transparent, within a predetermined angular range; an image-acquisition portion that, when the illumination light radiated from the light source portion is scattered at the cells in the culturing container and when a portion of this scattered light passes through a bottom surface of the culturing container, acquires an image by capturing the scattered light that has passed through the bottom surface; and a transmitting portion that transmits the image acquired by the image-acquisition portion to an exterior.