First Results from the WHAM Spectrometer: Hα Emission from HVCs and the First Detection of He I lambda 5876 from the WIM

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The Wisconsin Hα Mapper (WHAM) is a unique new instrument for the detection of faint optical emission lines from diffuse ionized gas in the disk and halo of the Galaxy. WHAM consists of a 15 cm aperture, dual-etalon Fabry-Perot spectrometer coupled to a 0.6 m siderostat. Its primary purpose is to conduct a sensitive kinematic survey of the northern sky (delta > -30\arcdeg) in the Hα line from Kitt Peak with 1\arcdeg\ spatial resolution and 12 km s(-1) spectral resolution. This survey, which is well under way (over 10,000 spectra have been measured), will provide the first detailed information about the warm ionized medium (WIM), a recently recognized major component of the interstellar medium. The first observations using the WHAM spectrometer include a study of emission lines from high velocity clouds in the M, A, and C complexes, with most of the observations on the M I cloud. I present results that include clear detections of Hα emission from all three complexes. The intensities range from 0.06 R to 0.20 R. Another study obtained the first detections of the He I lambda 5876 recombination line from the WIM. This line has been detected in four directions in the Galactic plane. The intensity ratios of the lambda 5876 line to Hα , while somewhat higher than the ``upper limit'' originally published by Reynolds & Tufte (1995), indicate that the spectrum of the radiation ionizing the WIM is significantly softer than that emitted by the O stars in the solar neighborhood.

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