Recent content by Ben Goren

After a bunch of searching, I was able to find a GE 45178 self-ballasted mercury vapor light for $26 at Amazon: GE 45178 - HSB160/M Mercury Vapor Light Bulb - High Intensity Discharge Bulbs - Amazon.com I also found this $23 (with standard shipping) medium base neon bulb...

Spectrometers in the graphic arts industry typically only have 10 nm resolution, with 3 nm being "high resolution," so I'm pretty sure that fixing the spectrum to within 1 nm should be plenty. I've been looking for cheap mercury, neon, and sodium lamps. Cheap bulbs aren't hard to find, but they...

Scott, That's an excellent question. The short answer is that it's not a problem for me. First, this is an exercise in building ICC color profiles for digital cameras. Except for certain models and / or modifications for certain types of astrophotography, all have IR cutoff filters -- a piece...

Perfect -- thanks! I'm hoping to finish building the spectroscope tomorrow, which would mean doing the first real exposures with it on Friday...or maybe Saturday or sometime next week. Whenever it happens, I'll post an update on how it all works out. Cheers, b&

Thanks, Wolfman29 and Cyparagon. I already have a generic red / green combination laser pointer of unknown origin. If I can determine that the green one is ~532 nm, is it safe to assume that it's DPSS and exactly 532 nm, or is there a chance that some other type of laser could also be (almost?)...

Wolfman29, thanks for the clarification. Yeah, a 10 nm wavelength shift would more than defeat the whole purpose. As you note, power is irrelevant, so long as it's bright enough to make a visible (even if barely) dot on a white page in direct sunlight and not so bright as to need safety...

icecruncher and BubonicCronic, thanks for the replies. I'm sure you're right about the superiority of gas lasers for this type of application...but I now realize I should have been more specific about the "cheap" part. The spectroscope in question is a box I made from foamcore, lined with black...

First, I'm new here. If this post deserves a clue-by-four, do please feel free to apply it...but hopefully by pointing me in the right direction...? I'm looking for a reliable method of calibrating a spectroscope. I've got a generic laser pointer with both red and green lasers, and that's...