Hello from James in USA

[James Foster]

Hello to all ARAS members

My name is James Foster and I am doing astronomy from Los Angeles and Mt Pinos (2500mters), California, USA.

I have mostly contributed to astrometry and photometry data to MPC and AASVO since 2004 and started film astrophotography in 1988.
I use CCD Autopilot V5 to shoot 20 or more photometric targets nightly. Southern California nights are frequently clear and I'm
far enough from the ocean to be rarely affected by the Pacific ocean's marine layer (fog).

My interest in spectroscopy was from a AASVO meeting we had in Ontario, California in 2014 and I realized that amateurs are able to expand their field of activity in this direction providing Be spectra for archiving in the BeSS datatbase.

I do most of my photometry and specta from my house 8 miles east of downtown LA (close to work!)
I also take 7-10 day vacations to Mt. Pinos (100 miles north) where the light pollution is minimal and altitude is over 2500 above sea level!

I use the following instruments at home and in the field:
Telescopes: Planwave CDK17(43cm aperture), Clasical Cassegrain 33cm F/7.5, C-11, Newtonian 10" F4.5, and Genesis 4" F/5 Refractor
Mount(s): Two AP1200GTO mounts, iOptron CEM60, and Losmandy EQ100
Camera: SBIG STL-11K, ST-10XME (main photometry/spectra camera), & ST-8XE
Spectrographs: (1) JTW Engineering L-200 (Littrow style) Spectrometer with 150, 300, 600, 1200, & 1800 Ln/mm gratings
(2) SA200 1.25" grating used in carousel of ST-10XME camera

One of my spectroscopic highlight was the observation of nova Sag 2015 that had very prominent emission lines.

Best regards
James Foster
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.astroimage.info

[Ken Harrison]

James,
Welcome to ARAS!
Your equipment should allow you to achieve some great results in spectroscopy.....
What image acquisition/processing software do you use?
Ken

[James Foster]

To: Ken,

I use MaximDL5.23 for CCD acquisition and RSpec for spectroscopic calibration. I'm going to post some of my V0694 Mon spectra as well as Be soon.
It would be nice to get CCD acquisition software whose FITS file output matches BeSS requirments. What software are people mostly using for BeSS?
I'd like to fully utilize Isis or at least VSpec for this, but I find them much harder to compared to RSpec. I got at far as determining my Instrument response and applying it to calibrated spectrum, but BeSS seem to require dozens of extra FITS headers than I generate in Maxim/RSepc.

James

[Ken Harrison]

James,
Have a look at John's BASS project spectral processing software.....
https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/astrobodger/info
Ken

[Francois Teyssier]

Hello James,

Welcome in ARAS Forum.
MaximDL is an excellent software for acquisition.
I use it either for slit spectrograph (LISA) and eshel acquisition.
The fit header is built during the reduction of the spectrum by the spectroscopic soft (ISIS, V Spec ...). It doesnt' depend of the acquisition software.
So, keep using MaximDL for acquisition.
About software, there are nice basic softwares for "dummies". Spectroscopy reduction is hard for anyone and the learning curve can be long and hard.Begening with a basic soft can be a good strategy in order to understand the first steps.

But if you want to produce high quality spectra, with high level, ISIS is the recommanded software.
You have many descriptions on Christian Buil's site : http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/isis/isis_en.htm
Also, in the recent book written by François Cochard (ARAS Group) Guide pratique pour bien débuter en spectroscopie astronomique
http://www.shelyak.com/rubrique.php?id_rubrique=15
In french, but should be later published in englisl. Ongoing translation.
If you follow, step by step, the description written by Christian, you'll get easily very high quality spectra.

You can have a look on François Cochard's conferences during the last ARAS OPH Meeting : http://www.shelyak.com/dossier.php?id_dossier=36

The forum will help you. This is one of its main purpose.

Waiting for your first spectra (especially the extraordinary V694 Mon !)

Best regards,

François Teyssier