Software helps backyard astronomers with real time spectroscopy

Amateur astronomers have long had a difficult challenge with converting the celestial spectra they collect into accurate profile graphs of the objects they've observed. Tom Field's new RSpec software is taking the painful trial-and-error out of the process. Field spoke about his software in a talk titled "Chasing Rainbows: An Introduction to Astronomical Spectroscopy" at this month's meeting of the Seattle Astronomical Society.

“I’m an amateur astrophysicist, amateur spectroscoper, and an amateur observer," Field said. "But I’m a professional software developer who's been at it decades.” He got interested in spectroscopy, but found existing software difficult to use, prone to crash, not particularly user-friendly, and often in a foreign language. So he set out to create something that worked better for the backyard astronomer, and RSpec was the result.

RSpec is short for real-time spectroscopy, and the RSpec website notes that the purpose of the software is to enable users to rapidly go from a raw spectrum to a calibrated profile graph in real-time, so that they can see a spectrum's graph right at the telescope. Field said amateur astronomical spectroscopy, which allows observers to determine the chemical makeup of objects, is something of a niche within a niche within the hobby, but he and others who are into it are excited about the chance to do real science.

“Visual observing is great, qualitative imaging is great," Field said. "I am particularly enthusiastic to see the kinds of quantitative results that we amateurs can get now.”

Field added that, within the spectroscopy niche there's a growing body of users with good things to say about his software.

“RSpec, in terms of processing the data and making sure you’re getting something real-time, is really remarkable," he said of the product, adding with some modesty that "It’s not rocket science, what I did."

Tom Field is a member of Seattle Astronomical
Society and creator of RSpec, real-time spec-
troscopy software. Photo: Greg Scheiderer.

Despite that claim, there's some heavy math and a rich set of features behind RSpec, which performed flawlessly and seemed quite easy to use during Field's demo. The software can pull out noise from collected images, average frames to smooth out the data, stack static images into a video, account for and remove background noise, be easily calibrated and focused, and includes a host of other features. It can grab spectra live or pull them from video or DSLR or CCD still photos, which RSpec can load real-time as they are created.

It's value priced, too, at just $100, and users can try it out for free for 30 days. Field said that you could spend a boatload of money on spectroscopy. The Hubble Space Telescope, for example, has a camera and gear that is the size of a refrigerator, and much professional equipment is enormous and complicated. But amateur spectroscopy doesn't have to be costly. A diffraction grating can be as simple as a broken compact disk, while a higher-end grating might run you $150. After that all you need is a camera and an adapter to mount your diffraction grating on your camera.

“You can get in for less than several hundred dollars,” Field said.

Field is always working on improvements and new features for RSpec, but he said it will have its limitations.

“There will always be other programs that handle the high-end data reduction needs of professionals and expert amateurs," he said. "But up until now those frequently cumbersome, advanced programs were the only tools available. I’ve deliberately designed RSpec to be an easy-to-use tool that works right out of the box.

"As a user’s understanding and needs grow, they can take advantage of the more advanced capabilities of the program. RSpec is a tool to learn on, to do outreach on, and to painlessly convert photons to meaningful scientific data. The program goes a long ways toward satisfying my needs as an amateur to just play and explore what’s possible.”

For more information:

• RSpec website, including ordering information lots of spectroscopy resources
• RSpec Yahoo! group