You can almost touch the stars – An Introduction to Astronomical Spectroscopy

Even if you wanted to touch a star, they’re all impossibly distant. In spite of these great distances, astronomers have learned an enormous amount about stars. How? The most common method to study the stars is called spectroscopy, which is the science of analysing the colourful rainbow spectrum produced by a prism-like device.

Until recently, spectroscopy was too expensive and too complicated for all but a handful of amateurs. Today, though, new tools make spectroscopy accessible to almost all of us. You no longer need a PhD, dark skies, long exposures, enormous aperture … or a big budget! With your current telescope and FITS camera (or a simple web cam or even a DSLR without a telescope) you can now easily study the stars yourself. Wouldn’t you like to detect the atmosphere on Neptune or the red shift of a quasar right from your own backyard?!

This talk, with lots of interesting examples, will show you what it’s all about and help you understand how spectroscopy is used in research. Even if you are an armchair astronomer, understanding this field will enhance your understanding of the things you read and the night sky.

We’ll do a live Q&A after Tom’s 45-minute presentation.

Tom Field

Tom Field was a Contributing Editor at Sky & Telescope Magazine for ten years. He is the founder of Field Tested Systems and the author of the RSpec software (www.rspec-astro.com) which received the S&T “Hot Product” award. A pioneer in the field of amateur astronomical spectroscopy, Tom aims to demystify field and make it accessible to all. He promises to open the door for you to this fascinating field!