Newest Telescope-Camera Pictures Minutest Meteors

Meteors as small as buckshot will be tracked and photographed as they whirl through space by a new telescope-camera just acquired by the College Observatory.

The new meteor camera, the first ever designed exclusively for photographing meteors, can photograph 40 times the number of celestial bodies that present sky cameras can. It will be installed at the University's meteor station near Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The new camera will become the main instrument in the Observatory's photographic meteor program started in 1936 and financed by the Navy since 1946. Fred L. Whipple, director of the College Observatory, is in charge of the project.

Program Aids Armed Forces

The program's purpose is to increase knowledge about the nature of the upper atmosphere and the behavior of meteors. Such information is also useful to the armed services as meteors and shooting stars behave much like bullets and other projectiles, including rockets.

The optical system of the new "Super-Schmidt" camera was designed by James G. Baker, research associate in Astronomy. The design represents a radical advancement over the lens-mirror arrangement developed by the late Bernhard Schmidt, German instrument maker.

The entire machine consists of an electric drive system, a large yoke that turns to follow the motion of the stars, and a telescope assembly hold by the yoke.