Schmidt telescope: Quick Facts

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Facts

Also Known As	Schmidt camera

Photos

In a Schmidt telescope a spherical primary mirror receives light that has passed through a thin aspherical lens, called a correcting plate, that compensates for the image distortions—namely, spherical aberrations—produced by the mirror. The spherical mirror then reflects the light onto a detector that records the image; here the detector is photographic film.

Alfred Jensch Telescope

radio galaxy Centaurus A

Comet Halley, photographed on March 8, 1986, by the 1-metre (40-inch) Schmidt telescope of the European Southern Observatory at La Silla, Chile.

Comet Halley, photographed on March 9, 1986, by the 1-metre (40-inch) Schmidt telescope of the European Southern Observatory at La Silla, Chile.

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Topics

Telescope Keplerian telescope Galilean telescope

Key People

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Bernhard Voldemar Schmidt

German optician

Nicolaus Copernicus. Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) Polish astronomer. In 1543 he published, forward proof of a Heliocentric (sun centered) universe. Coloured stipple engraving published London 1802. De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi.

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