Possibilities of the nuclear emulsion technique for the study of the systems of several relativistic fragments produced in the peripheral interactions of relativistic nuclei are discussed. The interactions of the $^{10}$B and $^{9}$Be nuclei in emulsion are taken as an example to show the manifestation of the cluster degrees of freedom in relativistic fragmentation. For the case of the relativistic $^{9}$Be nucleus dissociation it is shown that exact angular measurements play a crucial role in the restoration of the excitation spectrum of the alpha particle fragments. The energy calibration of the angular measurements by the $^{9}$Be nucleus enables one to conclude reliably about the features of internal velocity distributions in more complicated systems of relativistic $alpha$ particles.