New Spectroscopy Book available

[Merlin66]

Astronomical Spectroscopy for Amateurs

The "Astronomical Spectroscopy for Amateurs" - Springer, is now available for pre-order.

This book covers in approx 200 pages, all aspects of amateur spectroscopy from the history to how to make your own spectroscope. Profusely illustrated with amateur spectra.

Ken

[Ben Ritchie]

Congratulations Ken, looks very interesting.

Minor point, they need to proof-read the website page... ("Appendx D", "Using Spectroscopes in teh Converging Beam")

[Merlin66]

Ben,

Good catch!

Hopefully not to many more proof-reading errors.....

Ken.

[Psychobilly]

Reading between the lines it looks an excellent book...

Congrats Ken

[BinocularSky]

Congratulations, Ken!

[MikeP]

Who's a clever boy then ... well done Ken, you must be very proud.

Any chance of a signed copy?

Mike

[hunterknox]

I've been after a how-to-do book on spectroscopy for a while now.

I would have been put off this one by the variable quality of some of Springer's output, but having previously read Ken's PST mod guides and many useful PST-related posts I'm definitely going to get it. Well done, sir.

[TheThing]

Well done Ken! Glad you've got to the printing stage.

I'm updating my Christmas list as I type. If I send my copy to you, can you sign it for me please? Just something along the lines of " To Hugh, you taught me everything I know...!"

[Merlin66]

Maybe at an appropriate Field day/ Imaging session I can sign them.

No eggs or shoes...please!

To answer another question...yes is does also cover the use of prisms in spectroscopy- a section usually missed or glossed over as being "only of historical interest" - nothing could be further from the truth. ALL the professional spectroscopes have prisms in the optical train either as Grisms or spectral separators.

[dark star]

This sounds a really interesting book.

It would be especially nice to have a lot information about spectropscopy to study at my leisure, as I find it a fascinating subject, but not having a scientific sort of brain it takes time and patience to absorb the information!

I am glad there is information about the use of prisms, as this is how spectropscopy of the stars first began.

Will the book be available in bookshops, as I am old fashioned and like to handle a book before buying (this may be a sign of middle age!)?

[David Galvin]

'Harrison, Ken M.'

ahh that Ken, well done Ken I know two more people who will be buying a copy of the book. I note that there is a talk at Kelling on Saturday. I will do my best to attend that too. I might learn how to use my Star Analyser.

SATURDAY 11 SEPTEMBER

2.00 – 2.45 Jack Martin

Spectroscopy

[optical thrombosis]

I like the sound of this - if only for academic interest. How much will it sell for?

[Merlin66]

Should be available at all the bookshops who currently stock and sell Springer's "Patrick Moore's Series" - the indicated price is around 23 Gbp.

There's another "simplified" book currently being prepared " Grating Spectroscopes - How to use them" which will be directed towards first time users of the Star Analyser/ Rainbow Optics type gratings. Should be available mid next year.

And....."Astronomical Filters - How to select and use them" is also in the works.....

[Merlin66]

I'm sure Jack will give an excellent talk on spectroscopy. The Spectroscopic Bright Star Atlas he recently prepared using a Rainbow Optics grating and B&W film shows clearly what can be achieved with modest equipment.

"Spectroscopy - The final frontier" -Let's boldly go where few amateurs have gone before.......

[David Galvin]

Thanks for the heads up on " Grating Spectroscopes - How to use them, another one to look out for.

[NickH]

Well done Ken...for so many reasons (the publisher being the main one)

Look forward to seeing this one

[Merlin66]

Something about "standing on the shoulders of giants";

It would never have happened without the help and support of amateurs all around the world. I thank them for their input.

I should mention inparticular guys/gals like Christian Buil, Valerie Desnoux, Maurice Gavin, Olivier Thizy, Robin Leadbeater, the guys at COAS and Martin Dubs. They have given so much to amateur Spectroscopy- we owe them an enormous debt.

[NickH]

Chritian's work is indeed astonishing. Had a meeting with a prof at Caltech and showed him some of his exoplanet work...and he literally staggered out of the room to get others to see it, saying "we only got to this stage in the last decade"...

Tau Boo exoplanet

[Merlin66]

I keep saying...why take another image of M42 - there's 100's already done! Why do it????.... well if you checked your image you could possibly find a new variable star, a nova....how many actually look and analyse the content of their images?????.....

The field of amateur spectroscopy is yet to mature. There are MANY aspects of spectroscopy which do not require a PhD in Physics ( or even an O level in maths!), but like many things in life, they do demand some rigor and attention to detail. So if you really want to do something useful in astronomy - check your images! (or get into spectroscopy)

Ken

[Ben Ritchie]

I keep saying...why take another image of M42 - there's 100's already done! Why do it????.... well if you checked your image you could possibly find a new variable star, a nova....how many actually look and analyse the content of their images?????.....

Quite possibly you can't do this (unless you're lucky) as most imaging is done for faint signal and you saturate all the brighter stuff in the process, so you couldn't measure magnitudes if you wanted to. Transients will show up, but variability may well not.

The field of amateur spectroscopy is yet to mature. There are MANY aspects of spectroscopy which do not require a PhD in Physics ( or even an O level in maths!), but like many things in life, they do demand some rigor and attention to detail. So if you really want to do something useful in astronomy - check your images! (or get into spectroscopy)

Absolutely. I noticed Robin's spectra of WR140 appearing in a recent conference talk by Peredur Williams, and there is an awful lot that amateurs could accomplish.

My one concern I guess is wavelength calibration, that's rather important and not always terribly easy - how is this done in amateur spectra? A lot of the really interesting stuff depends on repeatable calibration and an absence of zero-point errors so you can pick up radial velocity changes

[Merlin66]

Ben,

Many variable stars and nova have been discovered by visually comparing photographic/ CCD images. (Blink Images)

Using a mono CCD for photometry is a recognised method. The AAVSO have details of compariosn stars and methodology.

Most of the image capture software have photometric capablities ie Maxim, AstroArt V4

The calibration of a spectrum is straight forward. The zero order image can be used in low resolution grating spectroscopes ( or known features like Atmospheric absorption lines); for slit spectroscopes a reference lamp like Hg or Neon is used to determine wavelengths and provide calibration. Using programs like IRIS and VSpec the amateur can quickly determine the dispersion, plate scale and resolution of his spectra.

I have members who are currently plotting spectroscopic binary stars in their orbit, measuring the red-shift of distant quasars and the Methane clouds in the outer planets....

[Ben Ritchie]

Bit O/T for this thread, sorry!

Many variable stars and nova have been discovered by visually comparing photographic/ CCD images. (Blink Images)

Sure, I appreciate that (that's what I meant by transients showing up) but what I was getting at is that there other interesting objects too that are aperiodic photometric variables but will be non-linear or saturated in typical (amateur) imaging. For photometry you're looking at keeping everything of interest linear, while for 'normal' imaging you'll let the bright stuff saturate to gain faint signal.

So i'm agreeing with you, I think spectroscopy is an area where an amateur can accomplish a lot. As well as your examples, there's also significant opportunities to do new stuff too because amateurs have the great advantage of having 'unlimited' telescope time, weather permitting. Robin's sequence of the periastron passage of WR140 is a good example, trying to get the professional telescope time to get good coverage is difficult. Objects like rho Cassiopeia is another example of an object that's easily accessible to the amateur and intensive spectroscopic monitoring would be of very great interest (I know the AAVSO already do photometric monitoring, which appears in the papers by Lobel et al.)

[FraserClarke]

I think spectroscopy is an area where an amateur can accomplish a lot. As well as your examples, there's also significant opportunities to do new stuff too because amateurs have the great advantage of having 'unlimited' telescope time

I'd second that very heartily. When it comes to the time-domain in particular, the professional telescope system is typically very limited.

Interpreting the data is of course harder than for photometry -- but that is maybe a pro-am challenge waiting to be solved (or already being worked on?).

If your book gets a few more people into spectroscopy Ken, it'll have achieved a very worthy goal.

[NickH]

I keep saying...why take another image of M42 - there's 100's already done! Why do it????.... well if you checked your image you could possibly find a new variable star, a nova....how many actually look and analyse the content of their images?????.....

The field of amateur spectroscopy is yet to mature. There are MANY aspects of spectroscopy which do not require a PhD in Physics ( or even an O level in maths!), but like many things in life, they do demand some rigor and attention to detail. So if you really want to do something useful in astronomy - check your images! (or get into spectroscopy)

Ken

So so agree...doing the astrometry with comets has been a really fun part of astronomy for me this year, and spectroscopy I dabbled in some time ago, and want to get back in to. Plus, looking at all my FITS data for moving objects is something I have done lots of lately..

[Merlin66]

Nick,

Remember Nova Musca (in joke!)