The spectrum of resonantly scattered light at right angles to a sodium atomic beam is reported. The light source was a cw dye laser tuned to resonance with a hyperfine component of the Dz line, and incident at right angles to the atomic beam. The spectrum, with the Stark effect sidebands, was recorded as a function of both the laser intensity and its detuning from resonance. The overall resolution is better than 20 MHz.

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A system is described that uses a helium–neon laser and lateral effect photodiodes to monitor the θ and φ angles of a test mirror. Accuracies of 0.01 arcsec are achieved short term in a laboratory environment. A bandwidth of 900 Hz allows simultaneous real-time angle monitoring on both coarse (10 000 arcsec) and fine (300 arcsec) angular ranges.

A cw dye laser is described which allows short-term frequency stability of 10–15 MHz. An experiment using this laser to measure the hyperfine absorption spectrum of the sodium D2 line is described. Results from this experiment are presented showing a resolution of the F = 2 → 3 and the F = 2 → 2 transitions.

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