Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 July 2016
The forest of absorption lines observed in all high-redshift QSOs at wavelengths shorter than Ly α emission is generally accepted as being due to a population of intergalactic hydrogen clouds. In order to study the physical properties of these clouds and possible changes in the properties with redshift it is first necessary to establish the true continuum level. The difficulty in defining continuum levels in the Ly α forest region is readily acknowledged in the literature but only rarely do published spectra show the adopted continuum.