Sometimes I ignore the closest star in my quest for those far away mysterious objects. There really is quite a bit to learn about with old Sol, though.
Last night was cloudy but there was enough of a break to open up the dome for a short while. I have missed a couple of clear nights recently so I decided to do something out there. I spent some time taking spectra of Sirius, but made the classic mistake of forgetting to check the "save" box beforehand, so they all just disappeared. After that I pointed to the Moon, and took some spectra there. The spectrum above was taken with the low-resolution grating and essentially shows the full visible spectrum.
But, the Moon does not emit any light! So actually, I was taking a spectrum of the Sun, or at least what got reflected from it. There are a lot of lines to see, it must have been very exciting for the astronomers a century or so ago who first saw such a spectrum. Of course this spectrum is also full of lines from our own atmosphere, I have not corrected it, but I find it interesting simply for artistic value. I did plot the spectrum and sure enough, it generally matches the expected "G" type spectrum.
Life is quite busy these days as I gear up for tax season. Days are cram-packed, late nights at the office, and a lot of stress. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up some astronomy for the duration.
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