Binocular is an optical instrument for providing a magnified view of distant objects, consisting of two similar telescopes, one for each eye, mounted on a single frame. They are also known as field glasses which provide a magnified view of distant objects.
The device comes in handy when watching your favourite games while at the rear, watching birds, wild animals and lots more.
The early binoculars, according to stealthyninjas.com, were made with glass lenses and Galilean optics. These optics were named after Galilei Galileo for the progress he made over early telescopes.
Galilean binoculars had an inverted eyepiece and a curved lens or mirror that received light from the focused object when viewed, and focused the light rays to produce the real image. Though the elements in the binocular gave it the ability to produce a right-side-up image, one of its faults was that it produced a narrow field of vision and had a low magnification.
According to blog.world-mysteries.com, the first to apply for a patent for a device of this kind was Hans Lippershey in 1608. However, box-shaped binoculars started to be manufactured in the 17th Century, as well as in the first part of the 18th Century by people like Pietro Patroni, Cherubin d’Orleans or I.M. Dobler.
Neither of these instrument makers was successful. The main reason for this was the fact that the devices that they produced were difficult to handle and not of high-quality. This all changed in 1825 when J. P. Lemiere managed to create the first real binocular telescope.
The Porro or the prism design that we use today when making binoculars was invented by Ignatio Porro in 1854. Soon after, the design started to be utilised by companies such as Nachet, Emil Busch and Boulanger.
One issue that made the binoculars manufactured by these companies less durable and practical was the low quality of glass that they utilised in the process. However, this all changed in 1894, when Ernst Abbe joined forces with the famous glassmaker Carl Zeiss. Today, Porro is credited as the inventor of the modern binoculars.
Another popular design today, the roof prism binoculars, were invented in the 1870s by Achille Victor Emile Daubresse. The main advantage of roof prism models is the fact that they are more compact.