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| Milestones in the development and construction of binoculars |
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In 1897 Moritz Carl Hensoldt constructed probably the world’s first double telescope with roof prisms; this device was the predecessor of the Dialyt® binoculars available from 1905. As the prism erecting system for his double telescope, Hensoldt selected the combination of a penta prism and a right-angle prism with a roof edge which had already been used Hensoldt’s basic distance measuring instrument in 1891. The developments achieved by Ernst Abbe at Carl Zeiss and Moritz Carl Hensoldt heralded the dawning of a new era in binocular construction at the end of the 19th century.
Major advances were already achieved in the first quarter of the 20th century with the use of light metals for the telescope body and by adopting special measures to increase the instrument’s resilience. Special attention was given to reducing aberrations, improving transmission, and to adapting the instruments to the needs of special applications.
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| Probably the world’s first double telescope with roof prisms, 1897. | Newspaper ad for Zeiss binoculars from 1909. | Modern coating installation for the application of an antireflective coating to lens elements. |
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Carl Zeiss has created many milestones in the development and construction of binoculars. To this very day, a pioneering Zeiss invention, surely the most important ever devised to increase the transmission of optical instruments, plays a pivotal role in determining the legendary quality of the company’s binoculars. In 1935, the Zeiss employee Alexander Smakula (1900–1983) invented the antireflective T-star coating (Carl Zeiss T*®) used to reduce the reflections on glass-to-air surfaces. In this way, the transmission of the binoculars was increased by an astounding 50 %.
You can find the many other improvements and inventions which have made Carl Zeiss an innovative market leader for many decades under The History of Binoculars at Carl Zeiss.
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