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ASTR 3520: SBO Spectrometer

Spectral line identification example

Spectrograph Manual
Opening Procedure for the SBO spectrometer:
  1. Open telescope with normal opening procedure. Can leave dome closed at start.
  2. Slew to zenith
  3. Turn on comp lamps
  4. Put narrowest slit at focus using the finder. Move the decker out of the way.
  5. Power up the spectrograph CCD. Make sure it is plugged in. You may have to unplug the imaging CCD, but make sure it is off first.
  6. Turn on the leftmost computer. It is the spectrograph controller.
  7. Connect CCDSoft to the SBIG ST8 and turn on cooling
  8. Rotate grating into correct position using vernier scale
  9. Remove grating cover.
  10. Expose and focus on HeAr / Ne comp lamp lines.
    1. Collimator focus dial is on the back of the spectrograph structure
    2. Record focus positions and temperatures
    3. Save focus files
  11. Switch from comparison lamp to sky
  12. Turn off comparison lamps
  13. Slew to target
  14. Find target in eyepiece, adjust to align slit to target
    1. If necessary, rotate turret by loosening the gold knob located ~180 degrees from the eyepiece. Do not over-tighten.

PICKING YOUR SLIT

Any slit will do for stellar spectroscopy. The tradeoffs are resolution and exposure time. A wider slit allows more light to pass through it, and therefore requires less time. A narrower slit will reduce the blurring caused by overlapping spectra - think about slitless spectroscopy: if you spread a continuum over a detector, if there is an image at each wavelength the images will overlap. So a narrower slit limits that overlap to the width of the slit

COMP LAMPS

There are TWO comp lamps: Neon and HeAr. The Neon lamp appears orange, the HeAr lamp appears pink. If both are on, it will be pinkish-orange. You can turn the Neon lamp off by unplugging it. The HeAr lamp has a power switch on its power cord

Data from the SBO 24" telescope spectrometer

To transfer data from the 24" telescope to your home directory, use the program "WinSCP". Login to cosmos.colorado.edu with your normal username and password.
The software at SBO saves the fits files generated as .fit files. Josh Walawender's solution also changes the stored variable type to signed (+/-) integer.
You can also use my FIT to fits script


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Created 10/8/07 by (adam.ginsburg@colorado.edu)