Bernhard Schmidt

He was born and grew up on the island of Nargen (Naissaar), off the coast of Reval (Tallinn), Estonia, then part of the Russian Empire.

Naissaar was a small, rural island whose population mainly supported themselves through fishing and piloting ships into the port of Reval.

For example, when young he built his own camera from a purchased lens and old concertina bellows and succeeded in photographing his local surroundings and various family members, and even sold some of his photos.

Gradually, Schmidt found his true calling, namely the grinding and polishing of highly precise optics for astronomical applications.

His business rapidly took off when noted astronomers such as Hermann Carl Vogel, and Karl Schwarzschild realized the excellence of Schmidt's mirrors for their researches.

Not only did he produce some of the most difficult and precise mirrors ever attempted up to that time, but he was entrusted with correcting and improving lenses originally supplied by famous optical houses, for example the 50 cm Steinheil visual refractor at the Potsdam Astrophysical Observatory.

Using a long focus horizontal mirror and a plane coelostat, both of his own manufacture, he took impressive photos of the sun, moon and major planets.

He attempted to continue his business, but as the war dragged on and turned to defeat for Germany, the economy became grim and scientists had no money for astronomy.

Schorr had only a little to offer: Schmidt could come to Bergedorf and lodge for free; there was repair work to do on the horizontal telescope, for which he would be paid a small fee.

Astronomers had long wished for a way to photograph large swathes of the sky quickly for the purpose of surveying the visible contents of the universe and seeing large-scale structures.

Ordinary telescopes up till Schmidt's time showed narrow fields of view, typically measuring 1 or 2 degrees in diameter.

Surveying the whole sky with such telescopes required an enormous investment of time and resources over years and (because of the narrow views) tended to miss large structures.

What was needed was large aperture cameras possessing wide fields of good imaging properties ("definition"), and fast focal ratios to decrease exposure times.

Schmidt's combining of diverse optical elements (a special mirror, a diaphragm at a particular location, and a "correction plate") into a simple catadioptric system, based on reasoning from first principles, was epoch making.

No orders came in and he remained dependent on Schorr and Bergedorf for a modest income from occasional jobs till the end of his life.

In book 2 of "I Wish I'd Been There, European History c.2008 by American Historical Publications, Freeman Dyson wrote, "He (Schmidt) bought a sufficient supply of cognac and quietly drank himself to death."

Soon after his death, through the advocacy of Walter Baade when he arrived at the Mount Wilson Observatory in the United States, the Schmidt telescope idea took off.

An 18" Schmidt was produced in 1936 and then twelve years later, the famous 48" (122 cm) Samuel Oschin telescope Schmidt-telescope was built at Mount Palomar Observatory.

Schmidt is the protagonist of Dominy Clements' opera An Enlightened Disciple of Darkness following his upbringing, life story, and legacy.