A method and system are described for automatically centering in an XY plane a field of view of a patient's eye under high magnification during ophthalmic surgery. The method includes automatically moving the center of the field of view to the center of a circular image detected in a real-time video signal acquired from the field of view of the patient's eye under high magnification during ophthalmic surgery. The system configured to perform the method has a processor and a non-transitory computer-readable medium accessible to the processor containing instructions executable by the processor to perform the method.