  We present a study of a cold strontium Rydberg gas. The narrowband laser
excitation of Rydberg states in the range n=20-80 from a 6~mK cloud of
strontium atoms is detected using the spontaneous ionization of the Rydberg
atoms. Using a high-resolution step-scanning technique, we perform detailed
measurements of the Stark maps of selected Rydberg states. We find excellent
agreement between the measured Stark maps and a numerical calculation based on
an independent-electron model. Finally we show that excitation of the second
valence electron can be used to probe the dynamics of the Rydberg gas with
nanosecond temporal resolution via autoionization.
