ROBIN'S ASTRONOMY PAGE SPECTROSCOPY

I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN SEVERAL PRO-AM COLLABORATIONS.

HERE IS A LIST OF RESULTING PUBLICATIONS

MY LATEST SPECTRA CAN BE FOUND IN THE BAA SPECTROSCOPY DATABASE

IF YOU ARE NEW TO SPECTROSCOPY THEN YOU MIGHT FIND THESE PRESENTATIONS OF INTEREST

They were part of British Astronomical Association Workshops and cover the equipment I use for low and high resolution spectroscopy and describes how spectra are converted into scientific data.

IF YOU HAVE A DIGITAL SLR CAMERA THEN THIS SIMPLE TECHNIQUE USED TO TAKE SPECTRA OF BRIGHT STARS MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

MY SPECTROGRAPHS

I first started experimenting with spectroscopy in late 2002 using a 100 lines/mm transmission grating bought from the educational supplies company Jeulin in France, which I came across on Christain Buil's website here http://astrosurf.com/buil/us/spe1/spectro3.htm It was mounted in a 50x50mm glass slide and, unusually for an inexpensive grating, it was blazed which increased the efficiency (most of the light is diffracted into one of the first order spectra.)

In late 2004, I eventually traced the manufacturer of this grating to Paton Hawksley in the UK and after discussions with them, the idea of an affordable filter cell mounted grating, specifically designed to be easy to use with a range of CCD cameras, was born. This became the Star Analyser 100.

In 2013 I developed a low profile 200 line/mm version, the (SA200-F) for use in filter wheels and other situations where it is difficult to find enough space for the SA100

I never cease to be amazed at what can be done with such simple equipment, such as identifying supernovae types, detecting molecules in comets and measuring the redshift of Quasars.

I also have a high resolution (R=17000) capability for bright objects, thanks to an LHIRES III spectrograph purchased in 2006 as a kit from the French AUDE amateur astronomy group and now available commercially from Shelyak Instruments

Purchased in 2013, this spectrograph covers the full visible spectrum at ~10A resolution. With mirror slit guiding and a remotely operated calibration module, no manual adjustments are needed, making this an ideal spectrograph for remote operation

In 2014 I modified an ALPY spectrograph specifically for producing very low resolution spectra of faint objects down to mag 18. This has been used to officially confirm and clasify supernovae spectroscopically. More details here