I now wish to speak rather more particularly of another phenomenon mentioned here the other night, which is peculiarly adapted for investigation with a small solar image. I refer to the differences between the spectrum of the centre of the Sun and the spectrum of the Sun's disk near the limb, as shown in the next photograph. Here is the spectrum of the centre of the Sun, and here is the spectrum of the Sun at a point a short distance inside of the limb. You will see at once the remarkable changes that take place. The broad H, and K1 lines (or bands) are greatly reduced in width; and the same thing occurs. I think, in the case of all lines that are accompanied by wings. In this region of the ultra-violet many of these lines have wings, which are lost or greatly reduced near the edge of the Sun. This causes a remarkable change in the appearance of the spectrum. Several other curious things occur. Not only do these wings change in intensity very much, but the central part of the line, which seems to be sharply distinguished from the wings, undergoes a decided change of intensity also, so that we find from a preliminary examination of the plates that the lines that are strengthened in sun-spots are generally strengthened near the edge of the Sun, while the lines that are weakened in sunspots are generally weakened near the edge of the Sun. This is true, I think, in the great majority of cases. Again, we find another curious thing: almost all of the lines derived from points near the Sun's limb are shifted towards the red in the spectrum with reference to lines from the centre of the disk. But there are some striking exceptions, and one of them is most significant: the lines in this fluting of cyanogen are not appreciably displaced. As we know from laboratory experiments that flutings are not displaced by pressure, whereas lines are thus displaced, we seem to have an interesting confirmation of the conclusion previously reached by Halm from his visual observations of two lines in the red-that the displacement of these lines is to be ascribed to pressure.* This investigation is a many-sided one, with applications to both solar and stellar phenomena. There is room here for many investigators, who can obtain results quite equal, and very likely superior, in value to any we can get at Mount Wilson. A large image of the Sun is not required, because the effect is very appreciable at some distance from the limb. It is also a matter of no importance whether the definition of the solar image be good or bad. The one essential point is that the spectrograph be fairly powerful, and this is a very simple thing to realise at moderate expense. I hope to see this subject taken up by several observers, who will determine the shifts and the relative intensities of the Fraunhofer lines, seek for evidence of periodic changes, and work out an explanation of these remarkable phenomena which will harmonise with some * This conclusion is further confirmed by the fact that lines of a given element, which exhibit unequal displacements at a certain pressure in the laboratory, in general show corresponding displacements near the Sun's limb, It remains to be seen, however, whether some other hypothesis may not be equally capable of accounting for the observed phenomena. explanation of the relative intensities of the same lines in sun-spots and in the spectra of stars. I may now touch upon another field of solar research, and consider the possibility of doing useful new work with the spectroheliograph, which is by no means so expensive and formidable an instrument as one might suppose. The slide shows the first spectroheliograph used on Mount Wilson, before we built the more permanent one now employed; and since the fact that we did substitute a permanent instrument for the temporary one might lead to the inference that the former did not give good results, I may add that the photographs made with the wooden instrument are even better than the later ones. They show only narrow zones of the solar surface, but for sharpness they have never been surpassed.* In the illustration the spectroheliograph is partly hidden under this spectrograph, and you can only get a rough notion of it. There is a rectangular wooden platform here mounted on a pier. At each corner of the platform was screwed a small cast-iron block, in which a V-shaped groove had been planed. In each groove was a steel ball. A moving platform, also built of wood, carried the optical parts of the spectroheliograph and rested on these balls, so that it could be moved across the image of the Sun (formed by a cœlostat telescope). The motion was produced by a small electric motor, belted with a piece of fish-line to this large wooden pulley, which drove a screw passing through a lead nut fastened to the movable platform. The screw was cut on a foot lathe and the nut cast on it. This simple mechanism provided the means of producing a slow uniform motion of this upper platform across the image of the Sun. The arrangement of the optical parts was precisely the same as in the Rumford spectroheliograph. Looking at the instrument in plan, we have a slit here (a) through which the light passes. A very simple slit will do. This was an old one; I think it came from a portion of the old Kenwood In the 5-foot spectroheliograph now employed, the dispersion is great enough for photography with the hydrogen as well as the calcium lines. For this reason the exposures are longer, and the definition somewhat less perfect, though quite satisfactory for practical purposes. spectroheliograph. The light passed through this slit and fell on a collimating lens (b), which may be an ordinary uncorrected lens if the focal length is sufficient. We happened to have some achromatics which we used, but they were no better than a simple lens would be. The parallel rays fell on a plane mirror here (c), and were reflected to these prisms (d, d). We used two prisms, but one will do perfectly well, unless hydrogen as well as calcium flocculi are to be photographed. These prisms had been discarded; they were originally made for the Bruce spectrograph, but they were so poor they could not be advantageously used, so we borrowed them from the Yerkes Observatory and put them in here. The two prisms, with the mirror, gave a total deviation of 180°. The light then passed through the camera lens (e)-here, also, a simple lens will serve very well-which formed an image of the spectrum on a second slit (f), close to the fixed photographic plate (g). By setting this slit on the H2 line of calcium, and moving the instrument slowly across the solar image with the motor, excellent photographs of the calcium flocculi were obtained. The next slide shows some photographs taken with the permanent instrument. Such photographs as these, made with the calcium and hydrogen lines, open up for investigation a large field, which anyone can enter with just such an equipment as I have described a very simple instrument, with small prisms and lenses, and built almost entirely of wood. I will show you in the next photograph some pictures obtained with the wooden instrument. You will notice that in this case the motion was not absolutely uniform; you can detect the slight irregularity of motion, but it did not affect the usefulness of the negatives. This is a direct photograph of the Sun; this is made with the H1 line of calcium, and this is the same region as photographed with the H2 line of calcium. If somebody would go to work with such an instrument and let us know exactly what such photographs as these mean, they would at least confer a very great favour upon me, because hitherto I have been unable to determine with certainty the relative parts played by the continuous spectrum of the faculæ and the light of the H1 line of calcium in producing the photographs. That question is still open, and many investigations will be required to settle it beyond doubt. In this H2 photograph we probably have a picture of the calcium vapour at a higher level than the level represented by the H1 plates. You see, for example, this bridge of calcium vapour across the spot, which is not shown by H1. Many investigations of great interest could be carried on with such a spectroheliograph as I have described. I wish I had time to go into them; there is only one I may mention, and that is the comparison of the calcium and the hydrogen images. Mr. Butler has asked me to explain to-night a point which I unfortunately failed to make clear in my talk here at the last meeting of the Society. In speaking of the relative level of the calcium and hydrogen flocculi, I said we found that the dark hydrogen flocculi are shifted somewhat towards the Grating and lens supports for modern Spectrograph (18 feet focal length), used in the spectroscopic laboratory on Mt. Wilson. The bar for cutting off reflections from the lens is shown. [To face page 76. |