Re: Gregory design

David Beach (D.Beach@irl.cri.nz)
Mon, 3 Apr 1995 13:58:04 +1200

>Although Gregory was first to publicly give all the details of a
>Maksutov-Cassegrain using back of a menisk as a secondary, it really
>was Dimitri Maksutov himself who has "designed" a Mak-Cass (shown even
>as early as '47 (?) in his infamous JOSA paper), together with "true"
>Maksutov and Maksutov-Gregorian. He and his Russian (sorry, Soviet)
>colleagues had made working prototypes of Mak-Cass and Mak-Gregorian in
>early forties, but design details were never published (at least to my
>knowledge).
>I'm not nit-picking, just want credits where they are due to.
>

Agreed, Bratislav. I have a copy of the "infamous" paper (BTW, WHY infamous?). The full ref is JOSA Vol 34 No.5, May 1944, pages 270 - 284 "New Catadioptric Meniscus Systems", D.D.Maksutov, State Optical Institute, Moscow, USSR. The first para reads:

"The present paper contains an abridged account of the author's work under the same heading on new optical systems of a type invented by him in August, 1941.*"

The footnote reads:

* Patented in USSR according to the claim dated November 3, 1941.

One should perhaps add that A. Bouwers in Delft independently invented the concentric meniscus system before WW2, but it was kept secret during the Nazi occupation of Holland, and could not be published until 1945. However, there was a Netherland Patent Application 102.016, July 7, 1941 which may claim priority.

However, it was Maksutov who invented the non-concentric achromatic meniscus system and who should receive the real accolade IMHO.

I think that is enough on this thread, don't you?

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