Spectroscopy

We observed the planetary nebula NGC 7027 at Mt. Stony Brook on the night of October 20th, 2022, in addition to observing the star Eta Aurigae to be used as a calibration star. We aimed to observe the following emission lines (the emission lines in brackets are not physically possible to exist on Earth): 

• H_Gamma - 4341 Angstroms

• [O III] - 4363 Angstroms

• He II - 4686 Angstroms

• [Ar IV] - 4711 Angstroms

• [Ar IV] - 4740 Angstroms

 • H_Beta - 4861 Angstroms

• [O III] - 4959 Angstroms

• [O III] - 5007 Angstroms

Using the [Ar IV] and [O III] lines, we were able to calculate and predict what the nebula's temperature and density would be. Below is my fully annotated Jupyter Notebook for this observation, which talks about the process of applying our calibration files, plotting the 1D spectra, wavelength calibrating our spectra, using the calibration star to derive a sensitivity function for our nebula, and obtaining the equivalent widths of our emission lines: 

Here is our true 1D spectrum plot for NGC 7027 (with science image of the spectra included too) : 

Science image of NGC 7027 spectrum using 15 minute exposure