Fig. 138.—Diagram of Gerrish Electric Control.
The actual proportion of a revolution during which current is supplied the motor is therefore rigorously determined by the clock pendulum, and the motor is selected so that its revolutions are exactly timed to this clock pendulum which has no work to do other than the circuit closing, and can hence be regulated to keep accurate time. The small fly-wheel (9), the weight of which is carefully adjusted with respect to the general amount of work to be done, attached to the motor shaft, effectively steadies its action during the process of government. This Gerrish type has been variously modified in detail to suit the instruments to which it has been applied, always following however the same fundamental principles.
Fig. 139.—Gerrish Drive on 24 inch Reflector.
An admirable example of the application of this drive is shown in Fig. 139, the 24 inch reflector at the Harvard Observatory. The mount is a massive open fork, and the motor drive is seen on the right of the mount. There are here two motors, ordinary fan motors in size. The right hand motor carries the fly-wheel and runs steadily on under the pendulum control. The other, connected to the same differential gear as the driving motor, serves merely for independent regulation and can be run in either direction by the observer to speed or slow the motion in R. A. These examples of clock drive are merely typical of those which have proved to be successful in use for various service, light and heavy. There are almost innumerable variations on clocks constructed on one or another of the general lines here indicated, so many variations in fact that one almost might say there are few driving clocks which are not in some degree special.
The tendency at present is for large instruments very distinctly toward a motor-driven mechanism operating on the right ascension axis, and governed in one of a considerable variety of ways by an actual clock pendulum. For smaller instruments the old mechanical clock, often fitted with electric brake gear and now and then pendulum regulated, is capable of very excellent work.
The principle of the spectroscope is rudimentarily simple, in the familiar decomposition of white light into rainbow colors by a prism. One gets the phenomena neatly by holding a narrow slit in a large piece of cardboard at arms length and looking at it through a prism held with its edge parallel to the slit. If the light were not white but of a mixture of definite colors each color present would be represented by a separate image of the slit instead of the images being merged into a continuous colored band.
With the sun as source the continuous spectrum is crossed by the dark lines first mapped by Fraunhofer, each representing the absorption by a relatively cool exterior layer of some substance that at a higher temperature below gives a bright line in exactly the same position.
The actual construction of the astronomical spectroscope varies greatly according to its use. In observations on the sun the distant slit is brought nearer for convenience by placing it in the focus of a small objective pointed toward the prisms (the collimator) and the spectrum is viewed by a telescope of moderate magnifying power to disclose more of detail. Also, since there is extremely bright light available, very great dispersion can be used, obtained by several or many prisms, so that the spectrum is both fairly wide, (the length of the slit) and extremely long.