The present invention relates to a surveying instrument and method for accurately determining the distance to a, in particular retro-reflective, target in the
close range for a specific setup of the surveying instrument. The central part of a received
ray bundle is shaded by a component of the optical unit of the surveying instrument. When targeting on the target in an on-target state, the accuracy of the
distance measurement decreases in the
close range. When targeting on the target in a misaligned aiming state, so that the reflected measurement beam impacts on the unshielded part of the surface of the
detector, and the measurement accuracy is improved. By shifting the impingement location of the reflected measurement beam on the
detector surface, i.e., by averaging the distance measurements of the spatially non-uniform beam profile, the impingement location is moved out of the obstructed portion of the
detector. In order to further increase the measuring accuracy, the distance measuring values can furthermore be averaged over time.The present invention furthermore relates to a
computer program product, wherein the
computer program product is saved on a
machine-readable carrier, or a computer-data-
signal.