Affiliation
Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC)
Mon, 08/15/2022 - 15:03
Hi
This question is for Lauren. I have the Star Analyzer 200 , this should work for drift scan spectroscopy, but would I still need the 3.8 degree prism?
Kim Hay
Star analyser 100 and 200 can achieve slightly better resolution when combined with appropriate wedge prisms to make a grism.
A SA100 needs a 3.8 degree prism.
An SA200 would need two such prisms as it has twice the dispersion, or a single one of about 7.6 degrees (but I have not run the numbers, the prism deviation is not a linear function.). But close enough.
Thank you Hamish. I will do more research on this before purchasing.
Kim
Do you have a dobsonian, or an equatorial mounted telescope?
If the latter, depending on your budget, you might consider taking on build of a Star'Ex or Lowspec 3D printed spectrograph. Both of them are classical slit spectrographs with lens collimator and camera design, reflective slit and internal guide optics.
With a slit spectrograph, there is a huge amount of scope for amateur scientific contribution in specific projects such as Be Star monitoring, Planetary nebula confirmation/rejection and (usually needs a bit more aperture, 10+ inches is good although I manage with 7) transient follow up from Asassn and gaia survey alerts. Personally, I find such follow up work very exciting and motivating.
If on a budget, slitless with the SA100 (and if possible wedge prism) still provides lots of scope on the bright end of the Be star monitoring. The SA200 is really meant for when one wants to use it in a filter wheel, when the close distance from filter wheel to camera sensor might make for too-limited dispersion if an SA100 was used.
Finally, i have noticed quite a few SBIG 8300 mono cameras coming onto the secondhand market. This is because they are not as low noise, high QE as the latest CMOS sensors, but they are still not bad. And if you are using drift scan spectroscopy as your tool, the SBIG 8300 cameras can actually use a special CCD readout mode called time delay integration, where the ccd rows are read out at the speed of the sidereal drift with the telescope fixed (drive off). This has been successfully used even on the palomar telescope for long-strip spectroscopic survey, the Palomar Grism Transit Survey, using the Pfui camera, and then the 4-shooter camera, which was a testbed of technologies eventually used in the first hubble WFPC.