Spectroscopy equipment

Hi Guys,

Quick question to the pros here: Have you ever done spectroscopy? If so what equipment did you use?

I ask because I am looking at this Rspec Star analyser:

www.rspec-astro.com/sample-projects/

Take a look, some really interesting projects!

Clear skies,
John

For diffraction grating consider

www.patonhawksley.co.uk/staranalyser200.html

I only played around with mine - never did calibration.
A diffraction grating is enough to get started.

Mark C

I've dabbled a little in it.
RSpec is good software. Worth buying.
See my homepage www.astroshot.com for an example on a supernova.
The Star Analyser 100 is plenty to get started.
www.patonhawksley.co.uk/staranalyser100.html
Loads of projects you can do with that.
Also, take a look at this thread:
www.irishastronomy.org/index.php?option=...&id=99755&Itemid=211

Michael,

I am really impressed with your work! This is something I've been wanting to try for a while. Did you purchase your grating from Paton Hawksley website, if so did you need to buy a spacer too?

Thanks again,

John

John,
I bought mine from Shelyak Instrruments in Ferance.
www.shelyak.com/rubrique.php?id_rubrique=4
I didn't get buy spacers. However, I did buy the prism.
This helps to keep the spectrum on the chip at the same time as the star.
Makes calibration a fraction more difficult, but makes imaging much easier.
If you decide to order it and give it a shot, I'm happy to do a Google Hangout and help you with calibration in RSpec.
Michael.

I've used RSpec to be good for processing and analyzing star spectra. It really depends how far you want to go in spectroscopy. Their are other spectroscopy software that can extract more detail than RSpec.

It depends how far you want to go and what applications you are interested in. I have been interested in wide fields of view of star clusters, comets, Veil nebula. Michael's approach is a good starter using a transmission grating in the optical train of your telescope.

I have built 4 spectrographs over the years. From simple systems using 200 l/mm transmission gratings to 1200 l/mm reflective gratings. I've taken images of dense star fields and wide fields of comets with there nucleus and coma. Typically fields of view of from 3 to 30 degrees. The limiting factor of transmission gratings is low resolution. I've used reflective gratings with off the shelf optics.

One of the designs involves the bilateral movement of the slit assembly is synchronized with the rotary movement of the diffraction grating. The camera records in a scan mode to achieve a wide field of view. see references below if your interested in building this one.

Another design version called a Slit-Free Multiplexing Spectrograph Design provides a FOV of 30 degrees. This has similar resolution to the best spectrographs. The other advantage is that you have simultaneous side by side images of both the target stars and spectra.

Eamonn


Ref: Ansbro E. "Wide-field fast scanning spectrograph", Proc. SPIE 4876, Opto-Ireland 2002: Optics and Photonics Technologies and Applications, 1265 (March 17, 2003); doi:10.1117/12.464052

Ref: Ansbro E. "A new wide-field spectrograph", Proc. SPIE 5492, Ground-based Instrumentation for Astronomy, 1290 (September 30, 2004); doi:10.1117/12.550887