CASS BlogThe Schmidt telescope at Calar Alto Observatory
02/02/19 15:47 Filed in: Telescope
The Schmidt telescope at Calar Alto Observatory was installed there in 1980 by the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astronomie, Heidelberg, and originally it was located at the Hamburg Observatory since 1955. The corrector plate and mirror have 80 cm and 120 cm diameter respectively; focal length is 240 cm and focal ratio f/3. A field-of-view of 8 deg (335 mm) diameter is available with a plate scale of 86.2 "/mm. More details on the telescope can be found in this paper by Birkle et al. (1994).
Thousands of photographic plates taken with the Schmidt telescopes were scan as part the HDAP - Heidelberg Digitalised Astronomical Plates - project. The digitalised images can be downloaded form the GAVO database.
A digital image of 5.5 deg by 5.5 deg of the M31 field photographed on a Kodak 24 cm x 24 cm curved plate using the Schmidt telescope at Calar Alto (credit: HDAP).
Thousands of photographic plates taken with the Schmidt telescopes were scan as part the HDAP - Heidelberg Digitalised Astronomical Plates - project. The digitalised images can be downloaded form the GAVO database.
A digital image of 5.5 deg by 5.5 deg of the M31 field photographed on a Kodak 24 cm x 24 cm curved plate using the Schmidt telescope at Calar Alto (credit: HDAP).