1. A solid state microscope comprising: a light source with a condensor and diffusion filter; a movable stage to provide X, Y and Z displacements to position and scan an object under the microscope; an objective being highly corrected for abberations with a large numerical aperture and an ultrawide flat field to produce and project magnified images of the object onto a two dimensional solid state image sensor positioned in the primary image plane of the objective, the image sensor having a large sensing area with a high pixel density and generating signals corresponding to the spatial distribution of the brightness levels of the images; an analog-to-digital converter associated with the solid state image sensor to process and convert the signals of the solid state image sensor to provide real-time digital images of the object; calibration and correction means coupled to said analog-to-digital converter for enhancement of the real-time digital images to account for optical and detection induced distortions; a frame memory coupled to said calibration and correction means into which the real-time digital images are continuously downloaded; image processors associated with the frame memory for processing the real-time digital images into a display image; and display means coupled to the image processors for displaying the display image generated by the image processors.