The Spectrographs
Most of the astronomical work with the 72-inch telescope is spectroscopic, photographing the spectra of the stars, and so a description of the principles and operation of spectrographs is desirable. Stellar spectrographs have evolved into certain definite forms and the two spectrographs for the 72-inch telescope are examples of the most recent types. In essence a spectrograph consists of a narrow slit, one or two-thousandths of an inch wide, on which the star light is focussed. That passing through the slit falls on the collimator lens which makes it parallel and then on a prism or prisms, triangular shaped pieces of glass which change the direction of the light and decompose it, breaking it up into its constituent rainbow colours. The spectrum, as it is called, is focussed by a camera lens on a photographic plate or can be viewed by a small telescope if desired. The course of the star light from the slit through collimator, prism and camera lens to the plate is shown in C, Fig. 5, while a view of the Cassegrain spectrograph showing the interior mechanism and accessories is given in Fig. 6. The part of the spectrum photographed is usually only the blue and violet region to which the ordinary plate is most sensitive, and obviously no colours appear on the negative but only a narrow dark strip which is crossed by light or dark lines. It is from the number and position of these lines that we obtain such a remarkable amount of information about the physical and chemical constitution, the temperature, motion and distance of the stars. The length of the star spectrum photographed with one prism is about one and a third inches, twice and three times that with two and three prisms. Its width is about one-hundredth of an inch and in order to make it this wide the star image has to be moved back and forward along the slit. The length of spectrum with the ultra-violet spectrograph, which only differs from the other in the prisms and lenses allowing the spectrum below the violet to pass, is about one inch. A photograph of the spectrum of iron or brass is made beside the star spectrum to serve as a standard to determine the positions of the star lines.
Fig. 6.—STELLAR SPECTROGRAPH ARRANGED FOR USE WITH ONE PRISM
(TEMPERATURE CASE REMOVED)