Formation of fringes in a<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson_interferometer" class="extiw" title="en:Michelson interferometer"> Michelson interferometer</a>. (a) If mirror M<sub>1</sub> and the reflected image M'<sub>2</sub> are parallel but separated by a finite distance, the two reflected sources S'<sub>1</sub> and S'<sub>2</sub> will be centered on the normal to the mirrors, and the interference fringes will be circles. (b) If M<sub>1</sub> and M'<sub>2</sub> are angled with respect to each other, S'<sub>1</sub> and S'<sub>2</sub> will be separated from each other. The interference fringes in general will be hyperbolas, but if M<sub>1</sub> and M'<sub>2</sub> overlap, the fringes near the axis will be perceived as a set of equally spaced straight lines. If S is an extended source rather than a point source as illustrated, the fringes of (a) must be observed with a telescope set at infinity, while the fringes of (b) will be localized on the mirrors.
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