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Old 10-09-2016, 01:04 AM
julianh72 (Julian)
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julianh72 is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Kelvin Grove
Posts: 1,301
Sol,

I bought my Star Analyser SA 100 grating about a year ago. For a while, I was content to just use it visually, and look at all the pretty rainbows. At least on the brighter stars, you can certainly make out the main absorption and emission features of the spectra through the eyepiece, and see the difference between a cool red star and a hot blue star..

Then I put it onto my colour astro-camera, and discovered that you can share the spectra with a group of friends in real time - both as real-time video on your computer's screen, but also doing real-time spectral analysis using a program like RSpec, V-Spec or BASS. That was actually a "knock-out" moment for me - I have my camera set up on a flip-mirror, so you can go from a visual view through an eyepiece, to the camera, and back again, and swap between seeing the natural view of the target to a rainbow spectrum AND a real-time analysis of the spectrum, with an overlay of the library spectrum for the star's Class, key elemental emission / absorption lines, scrolling through the black-body temperature spectra overlaid on the real-time spectrum to get an idea of the star's temperature, etc. Even my non-astro friends agree that it is pretty cool, even if they don't fully understand it.

I now generally use my grating with a mono camera - in a way, I miss the coloured rainbows on the computer screen, a grey-scale streak just isn't as pretty, but it gives me better resolution spectra for analysis purposes. I'll still mount the grating on my colour camera when friends or family join me under the stars, as it is easier to grasp what the analysis is doing, when you can also see the coloured spectral image, and for social spectroscopy sessions, I don't mind losing a bit of resolution for the sake of ease of comprehension, and the "Wow" factor of being able to contrast the absorption lines on one star with the emission lines of another is hard to beat.

You're in for a fun ride!

Cheers!
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