Grey painted metal instrument. Like a microscope. Mounted on wooden base. Two extra attachments. Brass but mostly grey. A Balloon Theodolite is a piece of range finding equipment used to find the altitude of balloons from the ground. It's primary use appears to be military and metrological. They are still in use today, although it appears to be more for tracking hot air balloons rather than metrological purposes.
Believed to be German, and to date to WW2. One of several objects in the Collection that appear to be related to WW2 (for example GEO-04). Online manual for the use of a Balloon Theodolite - http://www.novalynx.com/manuals/qm-8304-manual.pdf.
