A surgical microscopy system having an illumination system is provided. The illumination system comprises a xenon gas discharge lamp and a spectral filter which is optionally positionable into an illumination beam path of the surgical microscopy system and removable from the same. The spectral filter substantially exhibits, in a wavelength range between 400 nm and 700 nm, a transmission increasing from about 0.12 to 1 having a gradient between 0.025/nm and 0.0035/nm, in particular 0.00293/nm. Thus, the illumination system is enabled to provide light having two different spectral characteristics which is advantageous in particular for imaging structures in the human eye scattering to a different degree.