A device that includes a plane mirror which turns so as to keep reflecting sunlight toward a predetermined target, compensating for the sun's apparent motions in the sky. The target may be a physical object, distant from the heliostat, or a direction in space, and is almost always stationary relative to the heliostat, so the light is reflected in a fixed direction
An instrument consisting of a mirror moved by clockwork, by which a sunbeam is made apparently stationary, by being steadily directed to one spot during the whole of its diurnal period; also, a geodetic heliotrope
A device, consisting of a mirror turned by clockwork, to reflect the light of the sun in some fixed direction; now used with some measuring device to continuously monitor the suns output
heliostat
الواصلة
he·li·o·stat
النطق
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() c. 1750, from New Latin heliostata, from Ancient Greek ἥλιος (helios, “sun”) + Latin status (“stationary”).