Accession No
1253
Brief Description
spectroscope, by Adam Hilger, English, 1880 (c)
Origin
England; London
Maker
Adam Hilger
Class
optical
Earliest Date
1880
Latest Date
1880
Inscription Date
Material
metal (brass, steel); glass
Dimensions
length 440mm; breadth 240mm; height 490mm
Special Collection
Provenance
Inscription
‘Adam Hilger London’
Description Notes
Liveing and Dewar pattern direct vision spectroscope. Brass. Slit with steel edges, moved by screw with micrometer, blued steel screws, draw tube. Collimator with rack and pinion (not working) moving inner tube with longitudinal scale. Two composite prisms housed one above the other in central brass box. Both consist of two reflecting 45 degree prisms and one long 30 degree prism. The reflecting prisms act merely to pass the light twice through the two ‘opposed’ 30 degree prisms. The assembly is equivalent to two 60 degree prisms and the wavelength viewed is varied by rotating the upper composite prism. This is done by rotating the knob with the attached scale.
Upper prism moved by screw, with micrometer, divided 0-100 by 1, moving also a pointer across a scale, divided 0-50 by 1, on top of the box. Telescope with screw-in eyepiece, rack and pinion (not working) moving inner tube with longitudinal scale. Spectroscope moves about a horizontal axis concentric with a pillar stand. Tribach stand below, with three levelling screws. End cover for collimator.
References
Events
Description
Spectroscope
In 1814 Joseph von Fraunhofer noticed that the sun’s spectrum, when dispersed by a glass prism, is crossed by hundreds of fine dark lines. These lines could be used to determine the chemical composition of the sun, stars and many other substances by spectral analysis. The first photograph of the spectrum of a star (Vega) was made by Henry Draper using a spectroscope in 1872.
There are various different forms of spectroscope, but all use a slit and collimator to make a parallel beam of light, a prism for dispersing different wavelengths and a telescope to observe the dispersed spectrum. This is an early and unusual form of direct vision spectroscope designed at Cambridge by G.D. Liveing and J. Dewar. Direct vision spectroscopes consist of a series of prisms of different refractive indices arranged to produce dispersion of light without deviation.
18/10/2002
Created by: Saffron Clackson on 18/10/2002
FM:43396
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