Telescopes

Bioptic Telescopes

This kind of telescope has the benefit of being able to be used while you are moving around. The telescope is mounted on the top part of the lens so that you simply bend your head slightly downwards in order to see through the telescope when you want objects at a distance to be magnified, but when you look straight ahead or downwards, you don’t use the telescope. These telescopes are very useful for a variety of situations, including driving or in a classroom when a student needs to see the blackboard in a lecture hall, but also needs to see up close, or for any situation that requires vision at various distances. There are different kinds of bioptic telescopes that come in different magnifications and that offer different sizes of visual fields. For people who benefit from colored filters, the tint can be incorporated into the telescope. Additionally, a reading cap can be added in order to use the telescope to view objects at a closer proximity.

Reading Telescopes

As the name states, this type of telescope is used to be able to read or to do work from up close, specifically at a comfortable distance from the text or target object. These are comparable to magnifying glasses as the purpose is to use them for reading, however the difference is that these are telescopes which means you can read at a further distance than you can with a magnifying glass. The glasses can have your regular prescription along with the telescope and this telescope can even be mounted onto bifocals. You can add a tint when filters are needed. The telescope is placed on the glasses on the bottom inner part of the lens so that you can look down to read using the telescopes but you can use the rest of your lens for regular activity without using the telescopes.

The telescopes come in a variety of powers and your optometrist will fit you with the best telescope for your needs and visual capabilities. There is a 1.7 x Reading Telescope that allows you to see a whole column at once, making reading easier as more text can be viewed. It is easy to fit, can be used with any prescription glasses and it is available as a monocular or binocular option.

Special Feature Telescopes

There are a variety of special features that build on the traditional telescopes to offer different functions. Some examples include the Bio Micro EF telescope which is a Kepler telescope that is lightweight and provides binocularity with a wide visual field with a 3.5 x or 4.5 x magnification. There is the Politzer line of telescopes which could be Full Diameter or Bioptic and due to the unique optics of the telescope, it allows for a wider visual field. There is the Eagle Eye Telescopic System which is a more cosmetically appealing telescope, in that the telescope lenses are less noticeable. The telescope part of the glasses is quite small relative to the rest of the glasses and it’s placed in the top inner corner, like the Bioptic position.

There is also a telescope known as the Honey Bee Lens System which involves prisms. It brings images from the periphery into the center in order to help with visual field loss. It uses three attached telescopes of the same magnification side by side to provide the biggest visual field possible. On top of the telescopes, there are prisms used to angle the visual field to the middle telescope in order to provide the widest visual field possible.