Spectroscope is in the style of the original Bunsen-Kirchhoff design. Triangular glass prism sits on a round, brass dias and is held in place by a metal arm attached to the dias; prism is coated in black paint with only a round section of glass revealed on two sides; prism dias supported by a single pole with three feet at the base; three cylindrical tubes extend out of the prism holder; first tube is a telescope for viewing and attached below the prism dias; the second tube is the scale telescope and is attached to the prism dias; the final tube is the collimator which allows light into the system, a slit at the end of the tube can be opened and closed using a screw mechanism.

A spectroscope filters light through a narrow slit, dispersing the light into a visible spectrum. The earliest spectroscope was invented by Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff in Germany in 1859, and their basic design was not substantially altered until the introduction of the mass spectrometer in 1919.