Ken Harrison’s new book “Astronomical Spectroscopy for Amateurs” has now become available from Amazon and other booksellers. Ken is an active member on the RSpec forums.
His new book is a welcome addition to the discipline’s literature, filling a real need for both theoretical and practical “how-to” information in the field.
I predict that this book will become a well-respected and enduring classic.
The book, published by Springer as part of the Patrick Moore’s Practical Astronomy Series, is a high-quality publication. The writing, organization, editing, layout, color graphics and images are all excellent.
The book is divided into three sections:
Part One: Introduction to Spectroscopy – Covers the history and theory of the field, including a good discussion of the different types of spectroscopes. Even if you have read this kind of thing many times before, you’ll find that Ken’s presentation and his inclusion of new details makes it fresh and interesting reading.
Part Two: Obtaining and Analyzing Spectra – Discusses how to setup and images with converging beam as well as reflection grating spectroscopes. It also discusses different cameras including DSLRs. There’s a chapter that describes how to use VSpec for image processing. This section finishes up with a good discussion of different amateur spectroscope observing projects.
Part Three: Design and Construction – Frankly, my initial response when I thumbed through this section was that it wasn’t for me, since I don’t plan to ever build my own spectroscope. But, now, having read it through, I think that this section will be appreciated by almost everyone. Yes, there were places that it was a bit more technical than I was interested in. But, the majority of the material I found engaging and very helpful in filling in gaps in my knowledge. Even if you never plan to build your own spectroscope, I think you’ll find this section very interesting and informative.
One complaint I have about this book is that I frequently found parts that whet my appetite but then, instead of going into more detail, the author moved on to a different topic. This book could have been a lot longer! It’s unfortunate that Ken was constrained by the publisher’s page count and layout. However, that’s one of the realities of book publishing these days. Clearly Ken has a lot more he can write about. Hopefully we’ll see additional publications from him in the years to come.
You’ll find spectra and images in the book from many of the “usual suspects” in our community: Hansen, Leadbeater, Buil, Majden, Shelyak, Gavin, etc. Their images are a valuable addition to book, making it more accessible and informative. Thank you all of you for making your work available.
Ken, who is active here on the RSpec forum, is one of the leaders in the amateur spectroscopy community. Over the years, his postings on various forums and his direct emails have helped many of us deepen our understanding and overcome obstacles we encountered. Ken is also the designer of the increasingly popular Spectra-L200 spectroscope kit. (Link)
Whether you’re a newcomer or a seasoned expert, I think you’ll enjoy and find a lot of valuable information in Ken’s book.
Congratulations, Ken, and thank you for a great book and a real contribution to our community.
View the book on Amazon: link.