Autocollimation is an optical

Optics

Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...

 setup where a collimated

Collimator

A collimator is a device that narrows a beam of particles or waves. To "narrow" can mean either to cause the directions of motion to become more aligned in a specific direction or to cause the spatial cross section of the beam to become smaller.- Optical collimators :In optics, a collimator may...

 beam (of parallel light rays) leaves an optical system and is reflected back into the same system by a plane mirror

Mirror

A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection...

.

It is used for measuring small tilting angles of the mirror, see autocollimator

Autocollimator

An autocollimator is an optical instrument for non-contact measurement of angles. They are typically used to align components and measure deflections in optical or mechanical systems. An autocollimator works by projecting an image onto a target mirror, and measuring the deflection of the returned...

, or for testing the quality of the optical system or of a part of it. Large-aperture optics, however, are tested with a null corrector

Null corrector

A null corrector is an optical device used in the testing of large aspheric mirrors. A spherical mirror of any size can be tested relatively easily using standard optical components such as laser, mirrors, beamsplitters, and converging lenses. One method of doing this using a Shack cube is shown...

 avoiding the production of a large plane mirror.

One special application is to determine the focal length

Focal length

The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light. For an optical system in air, it is the distance over which initially collimated rays are brought to a focus...

 of a diverging lens: A light source is placed at twice the focal length of a converging lens on one side and a screen

Projection screen

A projection screen is an installation consisting of a surface and a support structure used for displaying a projected image for the view of an audience. Projection screens may be permanently installed, as in a movie theater; painted on the wall; or semi-permanent or mobile, as in a conference room...

at the same distance on the other side so that the image of the light source is the sharpest possible. When this is achieved, the screen is replaced with a mirror and the diverging lens is inserted between the converging lens and the light source at such a distance to the mirror that the light returning through the diverging and converging lenses produces a sharp image on top of the luminous object. This is the case when the beam hitting the mirror is collimated. The distance found is the (negative) focal length of the diverging lens.