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Spectroscopic Atlas for Amateur Astronomers 181

Table 104: High pressure sodium vapour lamp for street lighting

This lamp is widely used for street lighting. The sodium generates light in the domain of the
Fraunhofer D1, and D2 line. Due to the high gas pressure it’s not a real monochromatic
light. The continuum, as a result of pressure and collision broadening, as well as self ab-
sorption effects, shows a bell-like shape. Added auxiliary gases, for example Xenon, can
produce some discrete lines in the spectrum.

Table 105: High power Xenon lamp

Such high pressure gas discharge lamps are used for lighting of stadiums, position lamps
on mountain tops etc.

The line identification in Table 102 – 108 is based on Vspec (Tools/Elements/elements), as
well as on data sheets from the lamp manufacturers.

Table 106: Glow Starter ST 111 from OSRAM, (4–80W, 220V–240V)

Another alternative for broadband calibration and detailed analysis in the blue range of
spectra are modified glow starters for fluorescent lamps. They contain a small gas dis-
charge lamp, which is not used there as light source but as a bimetal switch. For our special
purpose it must be wired with a series resistor (details see [34]). OSRAM declares the
composition of the gas with hydrogen H and argon Ar. The light output in the blue range of
the spectrum is relatively weak and may require somewhat longer exposure times. For
110V mains, appropriate starters may be used also from other suppliers. The necessary se-
ries resistors must be determined by tests. The current must be limited to the extent, that a
reasonable light output is achieved without closing the bimetal switch. In the case of
ST111 40-80W, ~24 kΩ was evaluated. Rainer Ehlert from Mexico tested the 110V type
“Fulgore” and evaluated the same resistor value!

Table 107:

Glow starter RELCO SC480, in addition to argon and hydrogen, contains also neon and he-
lium. Thus in the optical spectral calibration about 270 lines are available, which is even
sufficient for the calibration of high-resolution Echelle spectra. An according line atlas, re-
corded with the DADOS- and SQUES spectrographs, can be found in [35]. Caveat: The
Model RELCO SC422 (110V) contains Argon only!

Table 108: Glow starter Philips S10

Contains neon and xenon. These elements form many blends in the red part of the spec-
trum. In the blue part appear some intensive lines, generated by dopants and alloy materi-
als.

Practial note to the calibration in order to avoid transmission errors:

If data from any table of this atlas are used for wavelength calibration, they can be copied
with ctrl c from the pdf file and transferred to the Vspec calibration field with shift insert.