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Questions tagged [spectroscopy]

Questions about the measurement of light waves whereby the wavelength is classified by its position in the electromagnetic spectrum.

7 votes
1 answer
338 views

How do amateur astronomers do stellar spectroscopy?

This question consists of 2 parts: How can amateur astronomers measure the spectrum of stars? In addition to diffraction gratings, what equipment do they use (like telescopes, and the focal length ...
user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
44 views

Is there any open data base for raw spectroscopy data?

I'm msc. student in physics and will start my thesis in a month. We are in search of a topic with my thesis professor and we talked about many ideas. After all, "what will this give us ...
Ege Tunç's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
102 views

What is meant by " elliptical galaxies stabilize due to the chaotic motion of stars"?

I read that elliptical galaxies stabilize due to the chaotic motion of stars. As I understand that means that the stellar motions are more nearly random in direction. So they perform independent ...
trynerror's user avatar
  • 849
4 votes
1 answer
186 views

What accounts for a Lyman-break for all wavelengths shorter than 91.2nm if the Lyman limit is the highest energy photon that neutral hydrogen absorbs?

From this description of Lyman-break galaxies, I don't understand how: ...radiation at higher energies than the Lyman limit at 912 Å is almost completely absorbed by neutral gas around star-forming ...
Rich McDaniel's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
57 views

You find yourself on a random planet in the milky way 2000 years in the future. Can you figure out where/when you are? [duplicate]

Imagine you're on a planet in a distant part of the milky way, 2000 years from now. You don't know where you are or how much time has passed. You have access to modern astronomical data and technology ...
KidAtticus's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
179 views

What data has JWST obtained of the Trappist-1 exoplanets and where is it? [duplicate]

I have been long waiting spectral data regarding the exoplanets around Trappist-1 and their atmospheres, and I was also long awaiting JWST's launch to get to know more about the system. However, now ...
Carlos_A_M's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
2k views

How would a person know if a planet is orbiting a binary star?

I read in Neil deGrasse Tyson's book Astrophysics for People in a Hurry that scientists can tell if a star has a planet orbiting it because the light appears to shake. So if in the case of a binary ...
Tardy's user avatar
  • 255
6 votes
1 answer
398 views

Natural line width from absorption lines

Emission lines have a certain natural width. Due to the uncertainty principle systems that spontaneously decay or produce radiation have a fundamental energy blur, and their radiation has a ...
trynerror's user avatar
  • 849
6 votes
1 answer
122 views

How do astronomical spectrometers measure spectra from single stars separately, without contamination from all of the nearby stars?

I am currently looking into light spectrometers, and I noticed that the ones I found had a similar problem; when the light reaches the spectrometer, it mixes giving a broad range of light wavelengths. ...
Aakarsh Tathachar's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
94 views

Where can I find datasets for all confirmed exoplanets, terrestrial exoplanets, and Super-Earth exoplanets?

The NASA Exoplanet Archive has a Planetary Systems dataset offers celestial mechanical data for 5,197 confirmed exoplanets. The Exoplanets Catalog classifies these exoplanets as terrestrial, super-...
Tom Lever's user avatar
  • 191
2 votes
0 answers
107 views

Different types of line broadening in stellar and galactic spectra

When analyzing stellar and galactic spectra with spectrographs, the spectral lines get broadened from the instrument. Why do the spectral lines get broadened after the light moves through the ...
trynerror's user avatar
  • 849
4 votes
2 answers
792 views

Does the luminosity of a star have the form of a Planck curve?

Figure shows the intensity of the radiant energy emitted from stars A and B over a unit time according to the wavelength. The area between the graph and the horizontal axis is S and 4S, respectively. ...
빛나는밤's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
534 views

How do astronomers calibrate the intensity scale of their spectrometers?

Discussion on Strange bump in solar spectrum taken with home-made spectrograph made me wonder: How do astronomers calibrate the intensity scale of their spectrometers? I mean, how to take in ...
Luis López's user avatar
14 votes
2 answers
336 views

Strange bump in solar spectrum taken with home-made spectrograph

I am an astronomy teacher, and made some kind of spectrograph with a difraction grating, a 3D printed slit, water pipes and a reflex camera. With a group of students we got this picture of the solar ...
Luis López's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
116 views

Is it possible for us to have mistaken a few brown dwarfs and a few white dwarfs for a burning ethane-octane-oxygen planet?

Is it possible that we humans may have missclassified a handful few but not all brown dwarf stars or white dwarfs, when there really could be possibly a burning planet? Assuming a large enough planet ...
Dimitri Morvaine's user avatar

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