The next meeting of the Spectroscopy Section will be Wed, Aug 14 at 2300 UTC. Austin Kuecher will be giving his talk titled "3D Printed StarEx Spectrometers: Engaging Beginners in Spectral Analysis". Join us as we explore how a StarEx spectrometer can serve as a gateway for newcomers to enter the field of spectroscopy. We'll discuss the construction of these high resolution (2400 l/mm) beginner-friendly spectrometers and demonstrate how capturing and processing spectral data can be simplified for novice users. Discover how we can inspire new amateur astronomers, expanding the community and fostering a deeper appreciation for spectral analysis.
Zoom link and meeting agenda is on the Spectroscopy Section page.
Rick Diz gave a great presentation at the 8/14 meeting. It included a minutes on a "Quick Start"/"How to" guide that he created for setting up observations. I believe he shared his email address but I wasn't able to write it down. Is there a way to contact him or get a copy through AAVSO? I see his profile in Find a Member but not how to contact him.
Thanks,
Chris
I would be happy to share the document I created on the process I use to acquire targets, place them on the slit, guide on them, etc. I do not see an option for me to upload the pdf to this forum page, but if you contact me directly I will be glad to send it to you.
Rick
hrickdiz@gmail.com
The new forums may allow you to upload those documents to the Spectroscopy forum there.
Thanks for the suggestion to use the 'new forums" for uploading the document mentioned above. However, I attempted to do that and I saw no functionality that allowed me to upload a document. In fact, I found that system to be quite confusing.
The new forums are very different! Discourse (the new forum software) is nice once you get used to it, though; I've been using it on other websites for a bit, and fortunately found the adjustment period to be short.
RE: attachments: The new forum comes with a spam filter which makes it so that you have to read a certain number of things (while logged in) and make a certain number of posts before your account gains the ability to upload attachments. That helps to cut down on spam from bots.
So, maybe if you try scrolling through a couple of topics and making a forum thread in the Spectroscopy forum, it will unlock the ability to upload attachments? You could also try contacting the admins to see whether they can give you the ability.
I just now entered the new Forum tool and read through every topic posted so far. In the Spectroscopy Section there were none.
When I tried to create a new topic and upload a file, it said new users were not allowed even though I had read every existing posting. So, how many is 'a certain number'? I am not inclined to just submit dummy posts trying to satisfy the unknown requirements of this system.
I am hoping that I'll get the hang of it.
It seems a bit unwieldly and difficult to navigate so far.
Not as straight-forward as these forums.
But some of us have been fooling around with it enough so that we get welcome emails, which I think it generates after a user hangs around for awhile. So I have been able to post an image of a light curve for an example.
Given the crazy requirement for (is it 30 charactors?) for a topic name, I can see a lot of new topics coming with names like iojnvaoevnafh akfvavjajv kkajsej.
Ray