The medium dispersion prism of the UK Schmidt Telescope.

The UK 1.2-m Schmidt Telescope acquired its first full aperture objective prism in 1975. This was a very low dispersion prism which was found to be particularly useful in searching for faint QSO's. However, the dispersion in the red is so low that nearly all plates have been taken on the blue-sensitive IIIa J emulsion, and it has been extremely difficult to identify quasars with redshifts larger than z=3. It was, therefore, decided to obtain a second objective prism having a three times higher dispersion. It is expected that this prism will make it possible to conduct searches for quasars having redshifts greater than the long-standing limit at z approximately 3.5. The prism should also be useful for stellar classification work in the UV/blue part of the spectrum. A description is presented of some results obtained during the recent commissioning run with the new prism.