The Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, Victoria, B.C.Plaskett, J. S. (John Stanley)
History
The Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, Victoria, B.C.
Plaskett, J. S. (John Stanley)
Dominion Astrophysical Observatory
A full set of eyepieces giving magnifying powers from 120 to 5,000
diameters and a complete double-slide plate holder with guiding
eyepieces for direct photography at the Newtonian focus are provided.
In addition there is a visual attachment shown in diagram C, Fig. 5,
which enables the telescope to be used visually at the Cassegrain focus
without removing the spectrograph. There are three finders attached
to the telescope tube for picking up and centering the stars. Two of
4 inch aperture and 5 feet focus, of power about 50, one north, one
south on the tube, and a long focus tubeless finder with a lens of 7
inch aperture and 30 feet focus at the top of the telescope tube and an
ocular of power 200 at the bottom.
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.
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