Are you ready for a different way of looking at the stars? Do you want to understand more about what you are seeing through your telescope?
Painstakingly researched, with the data compiled over many years by the author (an amateur astronomer for 45 years), this handy user-friendly pocket-sized field atlas contains the spectra (spectral diagrams) of over 73 bright stars in the northern hemisphere and is intended for use by other amateurs, students, and educational institutions as an introduction to the fascinating and important science of stellar spectroscopy.
Professional atlases are far more complex. Until now, nothing was available at an amateur level. This book fills an important gap as the first amateur spectroscopic atlas to be published. The reader will not need to have any prior knowledge of the subject or understanding of complex mathematics in order to use this book. Written in plain English and without difficult equations, it can make the subject accessible to anyone. It can even serve as a guide to the stars at astronomy club meetings or star parties.
Astronomer’s Pocket Field Guide
For other titles published in this series, go to www.springer.com/series/7814
Jack Martin
A Spectroscopic Atlas of Bright Stars A Pocket Field Guide
Jack Martin Forest Gate London United Kingdom E7 6DH
[email protected]
ISBN 978-1-4419-0704-2 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-0705-9 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0705-9 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009929021 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
To my parents, Louis and Polly, who fired my interest in astronomy by buying me my first telescope when I was 13.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Mike Dworetsky and Stephen Boyle, University of London Observatory, Dr. Robert Lombourne Open University, Professor Emeritus Jim Kaler University of Illinois, Dr. John Fisher, Valerie Desnoux, Christian Buil, Martin Peston, Charles Munton and Ed Palmer for their advice and encouragement in producing this book. And finally thanks to Jim Badura, producer of the Rainbow Optics Star Spectroscope, who said in the owner’s manual, “This seems to be a golden opportunity for amateur spectroscopists to create their own atlas of stellar spectra.” Well, Jim, here it is.
Contents
Dedication...........................................................................................
v
Acknowledgements...........................................................................
vii
Part I 1. Introduction...............................................................................
3
2. The Greek Alphabet..................................................................
11
3. The Periodic Table of Elements..