Schmidt camera
Cámara de Schmidt
- Date
- 1930 · confidence high
- Place
- Hamburg Observatory, Bergedorf, Hamburg, Germany
- Credited to
- Bernhard Schmidt
- Field
- Communication
What it is
Schmidt combined an easy-to-manufacture spherical primary mirror with a thin aspherical corrector lens ('Schmidt plate') placed at its centre of curvature, which corrects coma and astigmatism and allows very wide fields of view with very fast focal ratios.
What it led to
- Large photographic sky surveys (1950-2000)
- Systematic discovery of comets and asteroids