Another new toy: Spectroradiometer

[Jerry]

Got another toy a couple months ago but due to getting the software I had not been able to play with it. Finally the Tech at Gamma Scientific was able to get me the right software for the machine.

Its a Gamma Scientific Radoma Spectroradiometer. Its a little different than normal spectrometers where it can be calibrated to measure intensity of light as well as the spectrum for analyzing things like cockpit displays to meet federal display guidelines. It also has a whole bunch of math routines and can figure things like color temperature and the like.

My plan is to use it to figure my tooling factor when I finally get around to making dielectric coatings in my vacuum system. The way that works is you pick a wavelength you want a filter for and make it. Measure the actual bandpass wavelength and use this info to correct the layer thicknesses for the filter.

This is the unit, A Gamma Scientific GS-1271 interface and GS-1251 Head with a RS-22 175w Xenon light source


Gamma Scientific Radoma Spectroradiometer by macona, on Flickr

This is a spectrum plot of a mercury-argon UV lamp. You can see the mercury lines on the left and the argon lines on the right. At turn-on the peaks are about the same but as the lamp warms out the mercury lines are quickly overshadowed.


Hg-Ar lamp, warm by macona, on Flickr

[Doug Coulter]

Wow, nice piece 'o gear! Real decent range, too. So, when are you going to make some nice ultra-narrow-band hydrogen alpha filters for solar freaks? I have a feeling you own a telescope that would really do well with them and give some astonishing looks inside the sun if you had that setup (having sort of tried it here). You need one big one, fairly wide-band over the objective to just limit the heat and total power coming in, then a real narrow one at the eyepiece end to pull that off. I've seen some pretty cool pix taken with one so narrow you could tune it across the Doppler shift created by the velocity of the hydrogen moving in our out from the sun surface - so only see hydrogen moving at certain speeds and directions relative to you. I think the hyper expensive commercial ones are tuned with temperature.

Looks like you're going to have a real fantastic setup for optics, at any rate. There should be plenty of good chances to add value to things and pocket it out of all this.

[Jerry]

Its still a long way off with how long it takes me to get things done.

A professor I know at Portland State University gave me a copy of the blueprints for the 2" sputter guns they are making. Another project.

[Doug Coulter]

I know I drive BillF crazy out here with that one - I'll say you know, we need ??? - something. He'll find it, by golly, then it sits on the shelf for what seems like forever. That's because there were other things needed for what I had in mind, either physical, or just plain time (or more looking in books to decide an approach). Then all of a sudden, everything's there for a project, and then I get it done so quick he doesn't have a chance to come and kibbutz and help before it's done! I guess life is just like that.

Of course, building up all these preliminary goodies also means that some new project idea might occur, and I find I've already got everything (that's often as not what makes the idea come up) and bam, done.

[Bill Fain]

Hi, Ok. I had this ESP that someone was talking about me somehow. I have had this item on pre-order for a couple of months. I thought it might be modified as a chemical chromatographic device somehow. No where on the scale or function of what Jerry has, but maybe a start. It has Linux software with it, but the guy is like Doug, a small operation. Once it hit Hackaday, it ballooned, and now the guy and his wife are working all the time trying to fill orders. I expect to get it eventually. -bill

http://hackaday.com/2011/11/15/colorhug ... tion-tool/

[Jerry]

Yeah, I saw that when it popped up on HaD. it is really a terrible design and expensive to boot. Does nothing that existing color calibrators do, but worse, it is uncalibrated to anything. So it really does not do you a whole lot of good.

The sensor is something like a 16x16 array of photodiodes with a bayer filter to separate the colors. So it will give zero spectral info, it just gives the color in R,G,and B values based what it reads from the sensor sites. Good for color detection for industrial automation.

The commercial color calibrators this is supposed to emulate use discrete sensor and filters separated from each other. At least the two that I use to calibrate my monitors do. I have one of the Lacie BlueEyes (Really an i1Display) and an older Spyder.