Bernhard Woldemar Schmidt (, Nargen – 1 December 1935, Hamburg) was an Estonian optician. In 1930 he invented the Schmidt telescope which corrected for the optical errors of spherical aberration, coma, and astigmatism, making possible for the first time the construction of very large, wide-angled reflective cameras of short exposure time for astronomical research. Childhood Schmidt was the son of Carl Constantin and Marie Helene Christine ( Rosen) Schmidt. He was born and grew up on the island of Nargen (Naissaar), off the coast of Reval (Tallinn), Estonia, then part of the Russian Empire. The inhabitants of this island, mainly Estonian Swedes, generally spoke Swedish or Estonian, but the Schmidt family also spoke German. Bernhard was the oldest of six children, three boys (one of whom died in infancy) and three girls. Naissaar was a small, rural island whose population mainly supported themselves through fishing and piloting ships into the port of Reval. With his younger brother August Fredrik, Bernhard Schmidt engaged in many childhood adventures on the island. He was an extremely inquisitive, inventive, and imaginative young person and adult. For example, when young he built his own camera from a purchased lens and old concertina bellows and succeeded in photographing his local surroundings and various family members, and even sold some of his photos. He also became fascinated with the night sky and constellations. One misadventure proved tragic and marked Schmidt for the rest of his life. When he was 15 years old, he experimented with gunpowder. He packed an iron pipe with a charge, but through a mistake with the fuse the pipe exploded, and he lost the thumb and index finger of his right hand. Despite his mother's attempts to clean and bandage the wounds, surgeons in Tallinn later amputated the whole hand. This event appears to have deepened his reserve and introspection, qualities well noted by his contemporaries in later life. Youth In spite of his loss, Schmidt was soon experimenting and inventing again. He also took more photos and became adept at developing and printing them. In 1895 he moved to Tallinn, and for a time worked at retouching photographs. Later he worked for the Volta Electrical Motor Works and became skilled in drafting. In 1901 he went to Gothenburg, Sweden, to study at the Chalmers University of Technology, but soon thereafter switched to the University of Mittweida in the Kingdom of Saxony to