As point-and-shoot digital camera technology advances it is becoming easier to image spectra in a laboralory setting on a shoestring budget and get immediale results. With this in mind, I wanted to test three cameras to see how their results would differ. Two undergraduate physics students and I used one handheld 7.1 megapixel (MP) digital Cannon point-and-shoot auto focusing camera and two different cellphone cameras: one at 6.1 MP and the other at 5.1 MP.

Topics
Discharge tube, Equipment and apparatus, Telecommunications engineering, Emission spectroscopy, Gratings, Lenses, Educational assessment, Budget, Scholarly publishing
1.
Spectra of gas discharge images, astro.u-strasbg.fr/∼koppen/discharge/index.html(Retrieved 4/5/2012).
© 2012 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2012
American Association of Physics Teachers
AAPT members receive access to The Physics Teacher and the American Journal of Physics as a member benefit. To learn more about this member benefit and becoming an AAPT member, visit the Joining AAPT page.