Editing Schmidt camera (section)

{{Short description|Astrophotographic telescope}}
[[File:Schmidt Camera.jpg|thumb|Diagram of Schmidt camera]]
[[File:Brorfelde Schmidt Telescope.jpg|thumb|The 77 cm Schmidt-telescope from 1966 at [[Brorfelde Observatory]] was originally equipped with photographic film, and an engineer is here showing the film-box, which was then placed behind the locker at the center of the telescope (at the telescope's prime focus)]]
A '''Schmidt camera''', also referred to as the '''Schmidt telescope''', is a [[catadioptric]] [[Astrophotography|astrophotographic]] [[Optical telescope|telescope]] designed to provide wide [[Field of view|fields of view]] with limited [[Aberration in optical systems|aberrations]].  The design was invented by [[Bernhard Schmidt]] in 1930.

Some notable examples are the [[Samuel Oschin telescope]] (formerly Palomar Schmidt), the [[UK Schmidt Telescope]] and the ESO Schmidt; these provided the major source of all-sky photographic imaging from 1950 until 2000, when electronic detectors took over. A recent example is the [[Kepler space telescope]] exoplanet finder.

Other related designs are the [[Wright camera]] and [[Lurie–Houghton telescope]].