telescope: The Schmidt Telescope and Other Innovations

The Schmidt Telescope and Other Innovations

The Schmidt camera telescope, invented in 1930 by Bernard Schmidt, is a catadioptric system used for wide-angle photography of star fields. The primary mirror is spherical instead of paraboloidal, which requires that a special correcting lens be used on the front of the tube. The Maksutov telescope, invented by D. D. Maksutov in 1941, is similar in design and purpose to the Schmidt telescope but has a spherical meniscus in place of the correcting plate of the Schmidt.

Sections in this article:

Introduction
Reflecting Telescopes
Refracting Telescopes
Mounting the Telescope
The Schmidt Telescope and Other Innovations
Arrangement of Mirrors in a Reflector
Resolving and Magnifying Power
Images Produced by Optical Telescopes
Types of Optical Telescopes
Bibliography

See more Encyclopedia articles on: Astronomy: General