autokollimátor

An autokollimátor is an optical instrument used for precise measurement of small angles. It works by employing a telescope that can both project a collimated beam of light and observe a reflected beam. Typically, a reticle, a pattern of lines or markings, is placed at the focal plane of the telescope's objective lens. When light passes through this reticle and is collimated into a parallel beam, it is directed towards a distant mirror. The light then reflects off the mirror and returns to the autokollimátor. The objective lens focuses this returning light back onto the reticle.

The alignment of the returning beam with the reticle is crucial. If the mirror is perfectly perpendicular to the incident beam, the reflected image of the reticle will coincide exactly with the original reticle. However, if the mirror is tilted by a small angle, the reflected beam will also be tilted, causing the image of the reticle to be displaced. The autokollimátor is designed to measure this displacement, which is directly proportional to the angle of tilt of the mirror. By observing the shift in the reticle's position, the instrument allows for the measurement of very small angular deviations, often in the arcsecond range. Autokollimátors are widely used in optics manufacturing, precision engineering, and alignment tasks where high angular accuracy is required, such as in testing optical surfaces, aligning laser systems, and calibrating measuring instruments.