An ophthalmological apparatus (1) for breakdown of eye tissue comprises a base station (2) with a light source for generating light pulses. A support arm (3), with an application head (4) that can be placed onto an eye (6), is mounted on the base station (2). The light pulses are transmitted from the base station (2) to the application head (4) through an optical transmission system. The application head (4) has a light projector (41) for focused projection of the light pulses for punctiform breakdown of eye tissue. The support arm (3) is of rigid design with horizontal orientation and has a hinge (Rz) with a horizontally oriented rotation axis (rz), the hinge (Rz) being mounted in such a way that the application head (4) can be placed onto the eye (6) with a rotation (zrot) extending about the rotation axis (rz). The hinge (Rz) permits controlled manual docking of the application head (4) and light projector (41) onto the eye (6) in a vertical direction, via a rotation movement that is easy to perform and has minimal mechanical friction.