Krioma.net

Ever fancied doing something different with your scope? A common research tool is to obtain an object's spectra. This can tell you lots of things. In general this is useful to determine what the object is made out of, but you can do other things. For example for a spectra of a galaxy you can determine the morphological type without the countless problems that can occur due to photometric methods. Well I am getting away from the subject of this post and am introducing a bit of unnecessary jargon. With a webcam, as you probably are aware, you can set it up to take nice pictures. Well what don't we stick a diffraction grating in the way and obtain the object's spectra? Sounding interesting yet? Personally I have done this many times with modern CCD's and I even wrote some control software for a spectroscope (see: http://www.krioma.net/articles/spectrograph/Computer%20Controlled%20Spectrograph.htm). I have to say though I am very intrigued to do this with a webcam. I think it shall be something I encourage the astronomy society I am part of to give a go and if they don't want to I shall do it on my own when I get some time. I came across a very useful site full of wonders and helpful suggestions on how to accomplish webcam astronomy, see: http://www.leadbeaterhome.fsnet.co.uk/spectroscopy.htm