V.M. Slipher and the Development of the Nebular Spectrograph

Vesto Melvin Slipher was the first astronomer to clearly define the factors that determine the "speed" of a nebular spectrograph. This brief historical summary recounts the way these ideas developed and how Slipher's early work on galaxy Doppler shifts was so quickly extended in the 1930's when Milton Humason and Edwin Hubble at Mt. Wilson Observatory began to push the velocity-distance relationship to such a depth that no one could doubt its cosmological significance.