STELLAR EVOLUTION. 



303 



devote a very small amount of time to the subject. As you doubtless 

 know, the essential feature of a star spectroscope is the prism or train 

 of prisms by which the star light is divided into its constituent parts. 

 After passing through the prisms the light of the star is spread out 

 into a long band, which shows all the colors of the rainbow, beginning 



Fig. 7. 



Spiral Nebula in Canes Venatici. 



Photographed with the two-foot reflecting telescope of the Yerkes Observatory (Kitchey). 



with red at one end and passing through orange, yellow, green and 

 blue, to violet at the other. This band is crossed by lines, and the 

 problem of the spectroscopist is to interpret the meaning of these lines. 

 If the lines are dark he knows that the light of the star after originat- 



