Hello from Albert in the United Sates

[Albert Stiewing]

Greetings All

I live outside Arizona. I do not have a permanent Observatory so do most of my observing in the desert for a week during the Dark of the Moon. While we have over 300 clear days a year, the weather gods have chosen to schedule the clouds in conjunction with the new moon the last couple of years limiting my observing. I move North, just outside Flagstaff at 6500 feet, during the Monsoon season but have no southern exposure and few days with clear skies.

I was introduced to Spectroscopy by the late Jeff Hopkins and acquired his Alpy 600 with a guide module which I use with a C-8 @ f6.3 and a CGE mount. I have upgraded the science camera to an ATIK 414 for the greater cooling and a lodestar for guiding.

I primarily use Rspec for its ease of use, but began looking for software that did it all. My SNR seemed to vary greatly based on the software I used for reduction. I have tried ISIS, but find the file naming requirements impractical so have now been trying Bass Project.

I've wandered about looking for targets of interest with any particular direction. Seems most of the projects are only interested in high resolution. Recently I became aware of the BeSS catalog of star with a sub list of low resolutions stars, so I'll be looking for projects that I can contribute to.

[Francois Teyssier]

Dear Albert,

Welcome on the forum
Symbiotics are stars for those low resolution spectra are interesting
See the last publication using low resolution from ARAS database
http://www.spectro-aras.com/forum/viewt ... =33&t=1471
Very important for that purpose : *excellent* atmospheric/instrumental correction
For the list see : http://www.astrosurf.com/aras/novae/Inf ... etter.html
François

[Robin Leadbeater]

Welcome Albert !

I too have an ALPY (and a LHIRES) which I use with a C11 and an ATIK 314 (The 314 is good with the ALPY but some people have had problems with ripples at high resolution with the LHIRES and the 414 so I am holding off upgrading)

If you are interested in trying a range of objects with the ALPY then I can recommend Francois' "Low resolution spectroscopy Observers's guide" downloadable from his website
http://www.astronomie-amateur.fr/
Francois is being too modest

It is true that ISIS forces you to work in a particular way with file names etc and it is hard work at first but once you get used to it you begin to realise why it works the way it does and how good it is at generating scientific quality spectra. In particular, the features specific to the ALPY means that once it is set up, it is possible to get reproduceable results ready for publication very quickly.

Cheers
Robin