Estonian optician who lost his arm as a child while experimenting with explosives. He was an alcoholic who killed himself by overindulgence in Cognac. Nevertheless, he invented and constructed the first Schmidt telescope, using a vacuum to suck the glass into a mold, polishing it flat, then allowing in to spring back into shape. Schmidt spent the last year of his life in a mental hospital (Preston 1987, p. 106).

Additional biographies: Bonn