Vega Spectrogram (Joel Shepherd)

Vega Spectrogram

I've started tinkering with spectrography: this is the first decent spectrogram I've been able to capture. Vega is a type A0v star which (I am told!) is a good starting point thanks to its very strong Balmer lines which delineate wavelengths of hydrogen absorption. The pretty rainbow and curve is the spectrograph that I captured. The blue lines are a reference spectrum for A0v-type stars. The noticeable dips in both spectras indicate (primarily) hydrogen absorption: H-alpha, H-beta and so on. One reason the shapes of the two curves are so different is that I haven't calibrated mine for instrument response (sensitivity at different wavelengths). That'll come later: the absorption lines are easy to pick out nonetheless.

It's definitely a bit of a different sport from "ordinary" astrophotography: focusing is much more manual, exposure times are much shorter, you can stack exposures though I didn't here, Processing (in RSpec, here) is fairly quick. The analysis afterwards is the interesting part.

Actual exposure time was 0.225 seconds: for such a bright star, the exposure needs to be quite short so as not to saturate any part of the spectrum.

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