Schwarzschild telescope

The Schwarzschild telescope is a reflector telescope made of two aspherical concave mirrors , the design of which was developed by Karl Schwarzschild and is named after him.

construction

Schematic representation of the "Schwarzschild telescope"

Thanks to its structure, it is free from the aberrations of coma and spherical aberration and has no field curvature. The focus is inside the telescope, so it is only suitable for photographic purposes. A telescope of this type with a 60 cm primary mirror was built by Indiana University in the 1930s .

A variant of this is the Couder telescope , which eliminates the astigmatism image error, but has a field curvature.

Web links

• The March 1940 Indiana Alumini Magazine (PDF; 3.4 MB)
• Research & Creative Activity Volume XXVII Number 1 (Engl.)
• History of the Schwarzschild telescope Indiana University (Engl.)