Optical Square:
Working: The optical square consists of circular box 50 mm in diameter, 12.5 mm in depth. The box has three slits as A,B, and C. bb’ is horizon glass, half silvered i.e silvered at top and plane at bottom. Mirror cc’is set opposite to the opening C making an angle 45° with the half silvered mirror bb’. Ray from ranging rod P passes through the plane glass directly to the eye of the observer and ray from ranging rod Q falls on the mirror at cc’i.e. index mirror and after reflecting falls on the mirror at H and again reflected towards observer. So the angle between the incident ray from p and reflected ray towards A is 90°. The images of ranging rod at P and Q are visible at A as shown in fig. Now observer moves the optical square forward or backward on chain line so that the images of ranging rods co insides. The point below the position of optical square is the point on the chain line where the offset can be dropped to meet point J as shown in fig.