

All the colors of the Absorption Spectra do make it kind of confusing. And these are being absorbed (with emphasis on blue). Actually, if you just burned hydrogen and looked at its spectra, you would get the Emission Spectra and not the Absorption Spectra, and this Emission Spectra would only show the bunch of blue lines, one purple line, and one red line. All the other colors shown are just part of the natural light being shown down on the element. This is the color that will be the opposite of the flame color on the color wheel. The element helium was identified by its absorption spectrum in our Sun and also by its emission spectrum, when the products of alpha particle decay were. Remember, always look at the color area on the rainbow that is blacked out the most. So if blue is being absorbed, the opposite color would be transmitted and this color is orange. However, there are MORE dark lines in the blue region. If you look at the lines for hydrogen blue, purple, and red are being absorbed. Therefore, all the other colors would be absorbed. (This would be orange.) The element hydrogen turns orange when being burned and this color is transmitted to us. This means that if there is a big dark band where blue would be, then the opposite color to blue on the color wheel is being transmitted. You are supposed to look at the dark areas of the absorption spectra and those dark areas indicate that the color which would be there is being absorbed. I think both the absorption and emission lines are showing which colors are being absorbed. The 12 lines of the visible helium spectrum correspond to wavelengths of 388.8, 447.1, 471.3, 492.1, 501.5, 504.7, 587.5, 667.8, 686.7, 706.5, 728.1 and 781.3.
