The Spectrum of the Supernova of 1954 in NGC 4214

The normal supernovae all showed the well-known, but as yet unidentified, pattern of apparent broad emission bands.2'3 The early spectrograms of SN-NGC 4214 showed an unusually smooth distribution of energy, except for a few deep absorptionlike minima. That this object was in some measure peculiar had already been pointed out by Wellmann.4 From measurements of the Lick spectrograms, I made tentative identifications of the strong absorption-like minima and of several weak minima that also appeared like diffuse absorption lines. These seemed to form a pattern consistent with that of a B-type spectrum, lacking conspicuous hydrogen lines, with a shortward displacement equivalent to about 5000 km/sec.5 After leaving the Lick Observatory, I visited Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories and there examined and measured