autocollimatie

Autocollimation is an optical technique used to measure small angular deviations. It employs an autocollimator, an instrument that essentially combines a telescope and a collimator. Light from a source is collimated into a parallel beam by the telescope's objective lens. This beam then strikes a mirror or reflective surface. The reflected beam is then refocused by the same objective lens back into the eyepiece. If the mirror is perfectly perpendicular to the incoming beam, the returning light will appear as a sharp image of the source. However, if the mirror is tilted by a small angle, the reflected beam will also be tilted. This angular deviation causes the image of the source in the eyepiece to shift. By measuring the displacement of this image, the angle of tilt of the mirror can be precisely determined. Autocollimators are highly sensitive instruments, capable of detecting angular changes on the order of arcseconds. They are widely used in various fields, including metrology, optics manufacturing, and alignment of precision equipment. Applications include testing the flatness and parallelism of optical surfaces, aligning laser systems, and measuring the angular stability of mechanical components. The accuracy of an autocollimator depends on the quality of its optics and the precision of the measuring scale.