In a mammography apparatus, a deflection of an x-ray source aligned on a radiation detector is predetermined depending on the size of a breast compressed in the compression unit and/or the density of the breast tissue. Given an increasing deflection on an arc-shaped trajectory of the x-ray source, the compression of the breast is reduced at least once so that the path of the x-rays through the breast stays within a predetermined path length, starting from a first compression in a first x-ray acquisition.
