Finally, I can say that I've had "First Light" with my SBIG SGS Self-Guided Spectrograph. I bought the SGS used on Astromart a long time ago and basically it has sat unused for too long. I did some basic calibration work a few weeks ago, and on Sunday night I finally hooked it up to the 12" LX200GPS and took some data.
My targets were the bright stars Deneb and Aldebaran. My calibration still needs some work, there are a lot of tiny details that are difficult to dial in precisely. But at least I was able to get the thing working. The object is placed on the guide chip, centered on a slit; this creates a nice (but tiny) spectal display on the main ccd.
I made a bunch of mistakes and there is a lot to learn - but that's what makes this hobby so exciting. I can hardly wait to get out and try this thing out again! It's a whole different experience from imaging for pretty pictures. Of course there are a lot of different procedures for the software as well.
This image is the raw spectrum produced by Aldebaran. I used the freeware software program Visual Spec to translate the image data to a graphical plot. The big "dips" represent absorption lines of specific chemical elements. I haven't done a wavelength calibration on it yet, nor have I done anything to correct for ccd sensitivity variations. Also the skyglow has not been subtracted, in fact there would be a bunch of things that would need to be done before this plot actually became scientifically accurate, and it would look significantly different; but as with any first light observation, it's very thrilling to the amateur astronomer who participated in it!
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