BERNHARD SCHMIDT AND HIS CAMERA

At the beginning of the 20th Century, most telescope designs were variants of designs dating back to the 17th Century, such as the traditional refractor and the Newtonian, Gregorian and Cassegrain reflectors. In 1930, Bernhard Schmidt invented what is now called the Schmidt camera while working for the Hamburg-Bergedorf Observatory in Germany. The introduction of this camera revolutionized optical design, greatly expanding the way designers thought about how to develop and configure telescope systems to correct their defects. This talk will focus on how this innovation occurred and the life of this unusual and original thinker. I will bring an example of a Celestron Schmidt camera manufactured in the 1980s during its heyday as a photographic instrument for amateurs. Today, Schmidt cameras continue to be premiere instruments whenever there is a requirement for uniform images across a wide field of view combined with a fast photographic focal ratio, including the optics for the Kepler exoplanet search mission.

Speaker: Dr. Ken Lum