Using Commercial Amateur Astronomical Spectrographs

Using Amateur Astronomical Spectrographs is aimed at amateur astronomers, both advanced and those wishing to expand their astronomical interests, interested in learning more about astronomical spectroscopy. There is detailed information about how to get started inexpensively with low-resolution spectroscopy, and then how to move on to more advanced  high-resolution spectroscopy. Uniquely, Using Amateur Astronomical Spectrographs concentrates very much on the practical aspects of using commercially-available spectroscopes, rather than simply explaining how spectroscopes work.

 

The book includes a clear explanation of the laboratory theory behind astronomical spectroscopes, and goes on to extensively cover the practical application of astronomical spectroscopy in detail. Two popular and reasonably-priced commercially available spectrographs are used as examples. The first is a low-resolution (100 line/mm) transmission diffraction grating, the Star Analyser spectrograph. This is inexpensive and can be used for visual work with an eyepiece, but even better it can be screwed into the nosepiece of a CCD camera or in front of the telephoto lens of a DSLR camera. The Star Analyser produces excellent spectra of the whole visible spectrum and can include the zero order and higher order spectra. The second spectrograph considered is at the other end of the market, the high-resolution Lhires III with both 2400 and 600 line/mm reflection diffraction gratings. The Lhires III produces a high-resolution spectrum of a narrow region of the visible spectrum.  While considerably more expensive, this is a popular and excellent scientific instrument, that allows more advanced amateur astronomers to produce scientifically valuable data.

 

Using Amateur Astronomical Spectrographs also deals with computer processing. Two spectrum processing software programs are discussed, RSpec and VSpec. To create a spectrum image, the software that comes with any CCD camera usually works well. But the resulting spectrum image needs to be processed using this specialist software: RSpec or VSpec must be used to create a line profile of the spectrum.

 

With all of these tools in place, the amateur astronomer is well-prepared to forger deeper into the night sky using spectroscopy.