US Patent 9480399 Illumination device for an optical viewing apparatus

An illumination device for an optical viewing apparatus defines an illumination beam path and includes an illumination light source having mutually independently controllable individual light sources arranged in a first plane in a two-dimensional array. The illumination device defines an illumination beam path and includes illumination optics defining an optical axis. The illumination optics form a second plane conjugated with respect to the first plane. A diaphragm unit is arranged in the second plane. The diaphragm unit has a plurality of apertures and the apertures are assigned to corresponding ones of the individual light sources.