Bernhard Schmidt - Bergedorf

Bergedorf

From 1916 onward Schmidt had been in contact with Professor Richard Schorr, the director of the Hamburg Observatory, a facility located outside Hamburg in the countryside near the village of Bergedorf. Schorr had become interested in Schmidt's horizontal mirror and coelostat telescope and ordered one to be built for his observatory. After the war when Schmidt's economic situation became increasingly difficult, Schmidt began making overtures to Schorr for some kind of work at the observatory. 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. This was in 1926. For a time Schmidt did not accept. He had a number of patents to his credit, one of which involved using a wind-driven propeller to power boats forward. Schmidt hoped to turn this invention into something profitable. He also went back to Estonia for a family visit and to scout out opportunities in optics, as Estonia had become an independent republic after World War I.

Nothing came of these efforts, and by 1927 Schmidt's prospects were so poor that he accepted Schorr's offer. He began to establish a workshop in the basement of the Main Service Building at the observatory and to repair the horizontal telescope. During 1927 and 1929, Schmidt participated in two solar eclipse expeditions mounted by the Hamburg Observatory, the first to northern Sweden and the second to the Philippines. It was during this second trip that Schmidt announced to his companion, the astronomer Walter Baade, the most important invention of Schmidt's lifetime, indeed an invention that revolutionized astronomy and optical design in the second half of the 20th century, namely his wide-angle reflective camera.