He′li-o-stat.
(Optics.) An instrument invented by Gravesand, 1719, by which a sunbeam may be steadily directed to one spot during the whole of its diurnal period. Improved by Malus, Foucault, and Dubosq. The object of the instrument is to make a sunbeam apparently stationary for purposes of experiment, obviating the inconvenience arising from the continual change of direction of the solar rays. It consists of a plane metallic mirror, having a vertical and horizontal movement, and of a clock, the index of which moves in a plane parallel to that of the equinoctial. The extremity of the index is connected by a rod attached behind the mirror in the line of its axis. See heliotrope; solar-camera.