The Super-Schmidt Meteor Camera was designed by James G. Baker and manufactured by the Perkin-Elmer Corporation for the Bureau of Ordnance of the United States Navy, to be used by the Harvard Observatory. The camera, of fine optical components including a spherical mirror, has an aperture of 12·3 inches, a focal length of 8-0 inches and covers a field of 55° with a spherical focal surface of 7-3 inches diameter. The optical focal ratio is nominally 7/0-65 and effectively f/0·85.

The first complete telescope was installed in New Mexico during the summer of 1951. Since March 1952 two of them have been operating at two stations for the simultaneous photograph v of meteors.