digital camera spectroscope

Step 12 Go to My Site for more information about spectrometer

GO to my site http://www.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lamaredunet.fr%2F%3Fpage_id%3D34&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8

Comments

[LancePenney]

I've used laboratory spectroscopes to identify pure elements (eg. Hydrogen gas. Each type of atom absorbs tiny pieces of the light that hits it and reflects the rest. The particular parts of the light spectrum it absorbs is unique to that atom. The combined colors that the atom reflects appear as white light so we can't see this with just our naked eyes. If we pass the light through the diffraction grating, the light gets spread out so we can see all of it's component colors and the pieces that were taken away by the atom (dark areas). This type of picture shown from the phone is called an "Absorbance Spectrum" and is just like a "bar code" that is unique to the atom we are looking at. If we use the spectrometer get an absorbance spectrum of an unknown atom and compare it to a database of knowns, we can identify it. We also use "mass spectrometers" to identify unknown atoms. They're a lot more complex because they rely on electric and magnetic fields to manipulate the atom. In the picture is a few examples of the "emmision spectra" of a few elements. This is the same basic thing as the "Absorbance Spectra" except we only include the colors that the atom took away. This type is more commonly used in labs. I got the pictures from webpub.allegheny.edu/dept/chem/resource.php and meri.njmeadowlands.gov/lab/instruments.html

[Kent]

The most common use for a simple spectrograph is identifying types of light sources. Mercury lights are very different from sodium vapor, and they both have prominent lines (which will appear as colored images of the source) in contrast to incandescent bulbs, which produce light by heat. Light made by heat has a smooth spectrum, and the image will be a smear, like a rainbow. LEDs have more pronounced lines than thermal sources, especially red LEDs. As you get to blue LEDs the lines are smeared more. White LEDs use a UV LED and a phosphor, so it spectrum looks a lot like thermal. Some have a yellow LED too to make the light less blue. I bet you could see that with this spectroscope. I would love to see a picture of a UFO taken with this. It would be interesting if the UFO was using mercury vapor bulbs. That would suggest a mirage of distant street lights. Fireworks could be interesting. You could probably identify the elements used to produce the colors.

[das300]

Have u given any examples of what it can be used for ?

[cvxdes]

Spectroscopes can be used for thousands of things. They use them in drug tests some times, but mostly in chemistry.

[rusty0101]

At question may be what can this spectroscope (a cell phone camera with a diffusion grating in front of it) be used for. The quick (and actually wrong) answer is 'not much'. A longer answer is that if you have the right software in the camera, or where you send images to, you can do field data collection of spectra to see what various substances in the world contain. One thing to consider as part of that is that you will need more equipment to make good use of this tool, as you will want to isolate the light being reflected (or emitted) by the material in question, from the ambient light in the area. It is also best if the sampled source is narrow enough that clearly defined lines or dots can be sampled, to compare against the appropriate spectra samples. Besides chemistry, spectra photography is used in the analysis of the light emitted by stars to identify both the contents of the star in question, and the redshift of the star to determine it's speed of movement towards or (usually) away from us. (the camera phone slide probably won't give you enough information to do redshift analysis of anything you can photograph with that camera. Sorry.)