The development of the Schmidt telescope

Details The development of the Schmidt telescope The development of the Schmidt telescope

Jun 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009an....330..555w&link_type=abstract

Astronomische Nachrichten, Vol.330, Issue 6, p.555

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

History And Philosophy Of Astronomy, Obituaries, Biographies, Telescopes

Scientific paper

% Bernhard Schmidt (1879-1935) was born in Estonia. After a few years of studying engineering he ran an optical workshop in Mittweida, Saxonia, between 1901 and 1927. Astronomers appreciated the quality of his telescopes. Starting in 1925, on behalf of the Hamburg Observatory, he developed a short focal length optical system with a large field of view. For this purpose, Schmidt moved his workshop to the observatory. He succeeded in inventing the ``Schmidt telescope'' which allows the imaging of a large field of the sky without any distortions. Schmidt's first telescope (spherical mirror diameter 0.44 m, correction plate 0.36 m diameter, aperture ratio 1:1.75, and focal length 0.625 m) has been used since 1962 at the Boyden Observatory in Bloemfontein/South Africa. Apart from his 0.36 m telescope, Schmidt produced a second larger one of 0.60 m aperture. Shortly after Schmidt's death, the director of the observatory published details on the invention and production of the Schmidt telescope. After World War II, Schmidt telescopes have been widely used. The first large Schmidt telescope, the ``Big Schmidt'' (1.26 m), Mount Palomar, USA, was completed in 1948. The 0.80 m Schmidt telescope of Hamburg Observatory, planned since 1936, finished in 1954, is now on Calar Alto/Spain.

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