The magic of the Internet, Yahoo User Groups and the SA100

Have I mentioned before how great the Internet is? ;-)  The magic of the times we live in has been impressed upon me yet again recently as I prepare to become a spectroscopist.

I got excited by the idea of spectroscopy 2 weeks ago (see previous post) and I've been busy educating myself ever since; not a difficult task, since it turns out I knew almost nothing about it. 

I received my SA100, which is a very fine grating, designed to split up star light into a spectrum. It goes between a CCD and a telescope, but when I got mine I couldn't find any way of attaching it.

 

I have lots of adaptors and connectors, but still couldn't find a way:

 

 

So I joined a Yahoo User Group. There are thousands of these forums on every subject imaginable, and you are instantly connected with a whole range of knowledgeable, enthusiastic and extremely helpful and friendly people. Whatever you are into, there will be a user group. Try it: 

http://groups.yahoo.com/ 

Actually, there are several spectroscopy groups, even one specifically for the SA100, and one of the guys who have been helping me turns out to be its designer. 

They explained to me that what I was missing was a 1.25" nosepiece (I felt such a fool...)

so it was back to the internet to source one. 

It allowed me fit the SA100 to the camera, but I still could get it onto the scope:

 

 Again, they talked me through it, and finally I got it (I wasn't using my eyepiece adaptor to connect to the field flattener. It's a long story, and probably not of great interest...)

Now I'm good to go. The skies are clear, the batteries are charged, the tripod is aligned, I've downloaded the software ready for processing the images, and nothing apart from lack of skill, knowledge and ability can stop me now.

 The thought that I'm about to analyse starlight to discover what the star is made of is quite incredible I think.  In the long run you can use this set up to measure red shift of galaxies and quasars, which will prove that the Universe is expanding. And all from a garden in Hatfield; who'd have thought?  

Comments

[Pizza Seattle]

Thats a great camera. I own the same one. I was lucky to catch a European bee-eater last month with it!

[email lists for marketing]

I bought samsung LED SA100 19" monitor. Now I want to change the brightness. but the magic tune software which I downloaded from the samsung site does not work. I have windows xp. what should I do to fix this problem?

[Iain]

Personally, I'd take a good look at the medication I was on, and serioulsy consider halving the dose; we're talking about cameras, you're talking about samsung monitors.