Slitless spectroscopy is astronomical

spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...

done without a small slit to allow only light from a small region to be diffracted. It works best in sparsely populated fields, as it spreads each point source out into its spectrum, and crowded fields will be too confused to be useful. It also faces the problem that for extended sources, nearby emission lines will overlap. The

Crossley telescope The Crossley telescope is a reflecting telescope located at Lick Observatory in the U.S. state of California. It was used between 1895 to 2010, and was donated to the observatory by Edward Crossley, its namesake. It was the largest glass refle ...

utilized a slitless spectrograph that was originally employed by

Nicholas Mayall Nicholas Ulrich Mayall (May 9, 1906 – January 5, 1993) was an American observational astronomer. After obtaining his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, Mayall worked at the Lick Observatory, where he remained from 1934 to 1 ...

. The Henry Draper Catalogue, published 1924, contains stellar classifications for hundreds of thousands of stars, based on spectra taken with the objective prism method at

Harvard College Observatory The Harvard College Observatory (HCO) is an institution managing a complex of buildings and multiple instruments used for astronomical research by the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. It is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United St ...

. The work of classification was led initially by

Williamina Fleming (15 May 1857 – 21 May 1911) was a Scottish-American astronomer. She was a single mother, hired by the director of the Harvard College Observatory to help in the photographic classification of stellar spectra. She helped develop a common d ...

and later by

Annie Jump Cannon Annie Jump Cannon (; December 11, 1863 – April 13, 1941) was an American astronomer whose cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification. With Edward C. Pickering, she is credited with the creation of ...

, with contributions from many other female astronomers including

Florence Cushman Florence Cushman (1860-1940) was an American astronomer specializing in stellar classification at the Harvard College Observatory who worked on the ''Henry Draper Catalogue''. Life Florence was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1860 and receiv ...

References

Cited sources

* * Astronomical spectroscopy {{spectroscopy-stub

See also

References

Cited sources