Provided is a wafer observation apparatus includes: a scanning electron microscope; a control unit which includes a wafer observation unit that observes a wafer of a semiconductor device, and an image acquisition unit that acquires a wafer image; a storage unit which includes an image storage unit that stores the wafer image and a template image, and a recipe storage unit that stores a wafer alignment recipe including a matching success and failure determination threshold value, an image processing parameter set, and a use priority associated with the template image; and a calculation unit which includes a recipe reading unit that reads the template image and the wafer alignment recipe, a recipe update necessity determination unit that determines update necessity of the wafer alignment recipe, and a recipe updating unit that updates the wafer alignment recipe based on a determination result in the recipe update necessity determination unit.