BAADER Mark V Großfeld 30mm Wide-Field Binoviewer

The Baader Mark V Großfeld Binoviewer is the most advanced binocular viewing system available, a professional-grade redesign of the classic Carl Zeiss wide-field binoviewer. Manufactured in Germany to the highest optical standards, it delivers uncompromised performance for serious astronomers.

With oversized 30 mm prisms and 7-layer multi-coatings on all air-glass surfaces, the Mark V provides maximum light transmission, exceptional contrast, and full field illumination for all 1¼” eyepieces up to 40 mm focal length – with no vignetting.

Thanks to a clear aperture of 28 mm, your eyepieces are fully illuminated without any clipping or diffraction. The high-performance dielectric beam-splitter ensures equal brightness and perfect balance across both optical paths.

This is the fifth new version of the earlier Carl ZEISS wide-field bino-viewer version with 30mm prisms. New innovations range from the newly designed, 7-layer multi-coatings on all glass/air boundaries, new high-performance beam splitter with dielectric coating, completely newly designed eyepiece clamps (without locking screws!) equipped with self-centring ClickLock ® clamp, as is known from the mechanical engineering sector with the tool holders used in CNC milling machines.

Microfocusing collars on both eyepiece holders also allow sensitive dioptre adjustment for each eye.

Thanks to the high 1:10 gear ratio, all 1¼” eyepieces can be attached securely in place by lightly rotating the ClickLock® locking ring by 20° – and just as easily removed. Even this light rotation is sufficient to provide the same power as otherwise having to forcibly tighten a locking screw.

More about binocular attachments: When viewing with one eye, you only use a fraction of your brain’s “computing capacity”. In fact, there is an “emergency circuit” in the brain that allows image information obtained with one eye to be distributed to both hemispheres, but this means that the brain is unable to correctly interpret “image errors” and, above all, the “nerve noise” that inevitably occurs during energy transport – just like with a CCD image!

Just as you, as the owner of a CCD camera or webcam, superimpose several images on your monitor, i.e. “process” images, the brain can also superimpose the different information from both eyes when seeing with both eyes and in this way – in milliseconds each time – calculate out all the missing parts that do not represent an effective image element.

No wonder, then, that when observing with one eye, you automatically need to take breaks after a few minutes, which your brain demands because it is simply overloaded by the extremely concentrated viewing. This problem does not exist with binocular vision! You can look for as long as you like and remain relaxed. Even with severely impaired vision in one eye, the reduced strain results in an enormous gain in observation quality.

Critics often argue that using a binocular approach splits the light into two visual channels, meaning that only 50% of the light intensity reaches each eye. This argument prevents many people from trying out for themselves the revolutionary effect of binocular vision. But what is forgotten here is that 50% of the light reaches each eye and that ultimately the same energy is reunited “in the brain” (more precisely, in the back of the head).

What you see is therefore by no means 50% darker, as is claimed. The real gain is only visible to someone who has tried it for themselves and spent a few minutes familiarising themselves with this way of seeing. Ultimately, the image does not appear darker, but more detailed, effortless and beautiful.