star spectra - scraping the southern horizon!

I've posted at

http://home.freeuk.com/m.gavin/gensp28.htm [with links]

recent batch of low res star spectra [mostly variables] including
obscure sample V553 Cen scraping my southern horizon at -32o Dec
[overhead in Cape Town!] who's spectrum is a good match for lowly
U Pyx and R Pup via links.

Many of these stars have not had their spectra recorded for decades or
maybe a century and certainly not in infra-red that modern CCDs do so
easily so there's quite a buzz as they download in a personal
discoveryg.

Interesting stars is recent months include 'cool' deep red variables
like Hind's Crimson Star[R Lep -an unusual carbon star] and R Leo, R
Cnc, R Crv and o Ceti [Mira itself]. The latter series are visually
near minimum light of mag 9 to 13 [according to AAVSO] but in reality
there is a shift in their light towards near infra-red that does not
register on the human retina - the IR sensitive CCD has none of this
and records them blazing awayg.

'Hot' samples include Wolf-Rayet stars with emission line spectra.

All these spectra taken with a Rainbow Optics grating placed 25mm
immediately before the Starlight Xpress MX9 CCD on 12" Meade LX200 [no
slit used] with stars located via goto with Megastar software.
Spectrum trace via SX Pixwin option, rescaled and pasted onto scaled
template.

Maurice Gavin - Worcester Park Ob - Surrey - UK