My whole interest in "astrophysics" began with solar spectroscopy 40 years ago when I tried to built a prominence scope. That did not prove successful, just as well as I'd probably have blinded myself... but I have been fascinated by spectroscopy ever since.

This image was taken with a home make spectroscope designed for solar observing, yonks ago. 150mm mirror, 500mm focal length as the collimator with a 2400 lines per mm grating. Slit width was as narrow as I could get with two razor blades and still see light, very scientific but I was delighted it worked! Image videoed with a colour cctv camera.