In 1876, Abbe was offered a partnership by Zeiss and began to share in the considerable profits. Although the first theoretical derivations of were published by others, it is fair to say that Abbe was the first to reach this conclusion experimentally. In 1878, he built the first homogenous immersion system for the microscope. The objectives that the Abbe Zeiss collaboration were producing were of ideal ray geometry, allowing Abbe to find that the aperture sets the upper limit of microscopic resolution, not the curvature and placement of the lenses. Abbe's first publication of occurred in 1882. In this publication, Abbe states that both his theoretical and experimental investigations confirmed . Abbe's contemporary Henry Edward Fripp, English translator of Abbe's and Helmholtz's papers, puts their contributions on equal footing. He also perfected the interference method by Fizeau, in 1884. Abbe, Zeiss, Zeiss' son, Roderich Zeiss, and Otto Schott formed, in 1884, the Jenaer Glaswerk Schott & Genossen. This company, which in time would in essence merge with Zeiss Optical Works, was responsible for research and production of 44 initial types of optical glass. Working with telescopes, he built an image reversal system in 1895.