What instrument attached to the telescope separated the light collected from spiral nebulae into its spectrum?
Answer
A spectrograph
To perform the meticulous spectroscopic analysis required to identify spectral line shifts in faint targets like spiral nebulae, the collected light needed to be systematically separated by wavelength. This separation was achieved by passing the gathered light through a spectrograph, which was mounted onto the large telescope, such as the 100-inch Hooker Telescope. While a prism or a diffraction grating is the physical mechanism used within the spectrograph to disperse the light into its spectrum (like a rainbow), the complete, integrated tool attached to the telescope used for this precise analysis, allowing for the recording of spectral lines, is termed the spectrograph.
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