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Baker Super-Schmidt 12.25-inch f/0.65 meteor camera
Date: circa 1951
Inventory Number: 2017-1-0001
Classification: Telescope
Subject:
Maker: James G. Baker (1914 - 2005)
Maker: Perkin-Elmer Company (1937-present)
User: Fred L. Whipple (1906 - 2004)
User: Harvard College Observatory (founded 1839)
User: Oak Ridge Station (1931 - 2005)
Cultural Region:
Place of Origin:
Description:
Camera assembly on yoke. 23-inch primary spherical mirror of pyrex glass with two hemispherical glass meniscus lenses or borosilicate crown glass. The hemispherical shells are 18 inches in diameter. Plus a compound correcting plate of 12.5 inches diameter.
Signedunsigned
Historical AttributesThe Baker super-Schmidt camera was designed by Harvard astronomer/optical physicist James G. Baker in the late 1940s (likely using the Mark 1 computer) and fabricated by Perkin-Elmer in Norwalk, CT.
Six were built, ostensibly for meteor photography and research into the properties of the ionosphere, but the project was funded by the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance. They were set up in pairs about 25 miles apart and took simultaneous photographs, with the fixed stars serving as a reference to allow triangulation, and a chopping shutter giving velocity information.
The first Super-Schmidt was completed and tested in Norwalk, CT in May 1951 and put into operation by the Harvard College Observatory in New Mexico at the Soledad Station in June 1951. The first two Super-Schmidts were assigned to the US Navy Bureau of Ordnance. The next two were purchased by the Canadian Government for the Dominion Observatory to operate in Meanook and Newbrook (about 60 miles north of Edmonton). They were tested and installed in 1952. The last two were assigned to the US Air Force, and were operated in the field by Harvard.
It has a numerical aperture of 12 1/4 inches, focal length of 8 inches, and optical focal ratio of F/0.65. The effective focal ratio is F/0.82. The field of view is 55 degrees with almost no vignetting. The rotating shutter covers 52 degrees.
CHSI also has polished meniscus lenses, unpolished, but preliminarily-ground glass blanks for the meniscus lens components, and parts of the crates in which they were shipped between Perkin-Elmer, Fred Whipple at the Harvard College Observatory, and General George W. Goddard at the Photography Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
Six were built, ostensibly for meteor photography and research into the properties of the ionosphere, but the project was funded by the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance. They were set up in pairs about 25 miles apart and took simultaneous photographs, with the fixed stars serving as a reference to allow triangulation, and a chopping shutter giving velocity information.
The first Super-Schmidt was completed and tested in Norwalk, CT in May 1951 and put into operation by the Harvard College Observatory in New Mexico at the Soledad Station in June 1951. The first two Super-Schmidts were assigned to the US Navy Bureau of Ordnance. The next two were purchased by the Canadian Government for the Dominion Observatory to operate in Meanook and Newbrook (about 60 miles north of Edmonton). They were tested and installed in 1952. The last two were assigned to the US Air Force, and were operated in the field by Harvard.
It has a numerical aperture of 12 1/4 inches, focal length of 8 inches, and optical focal ratio of F/0.65. The effective focal ratio is F/0.82. The field of view is 55 degrees with almost no vignetting. The rotating shutter covers 52 degrees.
CHSI also has polished meniscus lenses, unpolished, but preliminarily-ground glass blanks for the meniscus lens components, and parts of the crates in which they were shipped between Perkin-Elmer, Fred Whipple at the Harvard College Observatory, and General George W. Goddard at the Photography Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
Primary SourcesFred L. Whipple, "The Baker Super-Schmidt Meteor Cameras," The Astronomical Journal 56 (1951): 144-145.
Fred L. Whipple, "Experiences with the Baker Super-Schmidt Meteor Camera," Transactions of the International Astronomical Union, 8 (1954): 741. doi:10.1017/S0251107X00032776
Peter M. Millman, "The Meanook-Newbrook Meteor Observatories," Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 53 (1959): 15-33.
Fred L. Whipple, "Experiences with the Baker Super-Schmidt Meteor Camera," Transactions of the International Astronomical Union, 8 (1954): 741. doi:10.1017/S0251107X00032776
Peter M. Millman, "The Meanook-Newbrook Meteor Observatories," Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 53 (1959): 15-33.
ProvenanceOak Ridge Observatory, Harvard, MA; transferred to CHSI, 2017.