Spectrography
Total Beginner’s How-To Guide: Drift Scanning Spectrography
Recording high quality spectra of the stars is easier than you ever thought it was! Drift scanning is a method which can be used to record scientific spectra using any telescope, even if it doesn't have a tracking drive. Dark skies aren't required-- I shoot all of my spectra from inside the city (a "white zone"). The large aperture of most telescopes means that your limiting magnitude will be much deeper than with the standard DSLR + objective grating method.→ If you prefer to learn by watching [...]
Spectra
These are a few of my favorite spectra out of the hundreds that I’ve taken. All of them (except for the vertically trailed Mira) were recorded using the drift scanning method, my dobsonians, a Star Analyzer slitless diffraction grating, and high dispersions in the range of 1.7-1.1Å/px. If you’d like to record similar spectra for yourself, I’ve written a step-by-step guide to the drift scanning method which you can read here.
