How to Build Home Made Spectroscope

Parts Required 1.CardboardBox 2. CDR or Music Cd

3.Sellotape 4.Glue 5.Pateince
6.Stanley Knife
f you fancy a quick play at a spectroscope it's easy....Find a cardboard box
- a shoe-box would be fine but maybe a little big. Select a CD (a blank re-
writable would be fine) Mount it on the bottom of the box, leaning up against a
side at about 45 degrees.
At the end of the box opposite to the CD make the input port - a hole near
the bottom - ie near the edge that the CD touches. You really need a horizontal
slot about a cm long and half a millimeter wide. Best to make a big hole, sellotape
a piece of cooking foil over it and then make a cut in the foil using a Stanley
knife.
All you need now is a viewing port. That is a hole in the top (opposite the
side where the CD touches the bottom) to view the spectrum through. It's hard to
know where the best place will be.
The best plan is to make a narrow slot, about 3mm wide nearly the whole
length of the box. Then illuminate the input slot with (say) daylight and move your
eye along the large output put until you find the brightest spectrum. When you have
found this, block out all of the output port you no longer need. You want to make
it as dark as possible inside the box.
He presto!
You're going to find looking at florescent lights, street lighting, TVs and
Monitors really fascinating.
Now, when you shine a laser into it, instead of a spectrum, you get just a
single line. Try two lasers of different wavelengths and the lines will be in
different places. You will be able to shine them both at the same time.