Amateur stellar spectroscopy

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andmar

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Hi!

Has anyone of you done some analysis of starlight ?
I'm trying to figure out how much it would cost to buy a telescope, digital camera and
a spectroscope, and how difficult it would be to get some good results.

I'm thinking of an automated system where you can point the telescope towards some stars and let it
follow them while the camera takes pictures at preprogrammed times.

The stars will be some hundred lightyears away.

Thanks.
 
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MeteorWayne

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It is feasible, though probably would be pretty expensive. You'd need a big scope and long (multiple night most likely) accurately tracked exposures to gather enough photons, very high quality diffraction gratings to split the spectrum, and a big CCD chip to spread the spectrum out enough to get sufficient spectral reolution to be useful. I wouldn't hazard a guess as to what the cost might be since I haven't researched such a system.

The obove of course does not apply to the closest star to us, the one only 8 light minutes away, where you'd have too many photons and too much heat! :)

Wayne
 
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