The 19th century is the century of the precision instrument. The increasing technical skills of instrument makers enabled increasingly accurate measurements. The reading telescope owes its existence to this development. This one was made to read a precision scale from a distance. The instrument is therefore supplied with crosshairs in the focus of the lens. In this position the image coincides with the crosshairs, which can be positioned with setting screws. The tripod can also be levelled precisely. The producer of these two telescopes, the firm of G.A. Steinheil in München, was one of the best optical instrument makers of the world in the second half of the 19th century.
Distance reading telescope; No 2445
1865