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