ABSTRACT
Like plane mirrors, spherical mirrors are a common type of mirror used in many applications. Spherical mirrors are similar to plane mirrors in image formation, but instead of being made from a flat piece of glass, spherical mirrors have the shape of a section from the surface of a hollow sphere. There are two types of spherical mirrors: with the reflecting surface applied on the inner or on the outer surfaces. The geometrical optics method, sometimes called the ray-tracing method, is used for locating the images formed by spherical mirrors. The chapter presents three experimental lab cases that cover the formation of images of an object placed in front of a spherical mirror. The cases are: image formation by concave mirrors; image formation by convex mirrors; and image formation by two spherical concave mirrors. Spherical mirrors are used in many applications, such as simple reflections, collimating, light convergence and divergence, and reflecting telescopes.
