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Re: sun's spectrum



Hi,

Here At the U of AZ, we have lots of clear sky, and do take
our student spectrometers outside, but with a bit of frosted glass over
the entrance slit. We see a nice solar spectrum.

On the original question of seeing the hydrogen and helium lines.
Even in absorption the lines from these elements in the visible, are less
dominant than you might expect because transition from the ground states
are in the deep UV. Usually the atoms are not in excited states
waiting to absorb more light, but quickly decay to the ground state.

Thanks Roger Haar

On Fri, 30 Jan 1998, Sam Sampere wrote:

Please don't point your spectroscope at the sun at look directly in the
instrument to see the spectrum if you are using a 'Project Star'-type
electroscope. You won't see with that eye again!!

You can point the spectroscope at blue sky (away from the sun) (blue
sky--not a common occurence in Syracuse) and see the Fraunhoffer lines.

Sam


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sam Sampere
Syracuse University
Department of Physics
Syracuse (Where all the snow is..), NY 13244



On Thu, 29 Jan 1998 fredb@teleport.com wrote:

When you look at the sun's light in a spectroscope, you see the entire
spectrum. Since the sun is made mainly of hydrogen, where are the hydrogen
lines? Or the helium lines?