Making a Spectroscope with a CD

Find Rainbows Everywhere with Your Own Spectroscope!

What is light? What is a rainbow?
Make your own spectroscope with a compact disk (CD) and see the colors hidden within different types of light. Light from the Sun and ordinary light bulbs both seem white or colorless, but are they the same? See for yourself!!

The design of the spectroscope is originally by Eiichi Yoshida at Takarazuka East High School, Japan.

See Eiichi Yoshida's original Japanese version
Go to the Science Factory A1 Page (Japanese only)

1) Preparation

You need a CD (an used CD is OK), scissors, a ruler, a cutter, a tape, and a stapler.
Download a paper template (PDF file, 176 KB) and print it out in a 11"x17" size paper. Or you can print it out in a Letter size paper, and then enlarge it at 129 %. Then copy it on a thick paper. A 67 lbs. paper is the thickest one that a copy machine can work. (The regular office paper is 20 lbs.) It may be up to the copy machine.
Cut out the slit with a cutter. If it is too difficult for you to cut out the very thin slit, you can cut out a wider rectangle, and then put a paper on it and adjust the slit width.

2) Let's Make!!

You can down load the how-to-make sheet in PDF file (4.1 MB).

3) Let's Observe Light Sources

At first, download a work sheet (PDF file, 52 KB), and color the first boxes with your crayons. (These boxes will be the color reference.) Look at various light sources with your spectroscope, for example, a prdinary light bulb (clear incandescent bulb), a fluorescent bulb, a red bulb, a blue bulb, and so on. Write the source name and the color (the color what you see without the spectroscope), and color how you see in the boxes with crayons.

Examples of spectra

Photos for making a spectroscope (Onizuka Science Day 2006)

Hands-on Workshops for Making a Spectroscope

4) Other Useful Sites

Chris Chiaverina's Spectral Analysis Page
Joseph F. Alward's Properties of Light Page
Thayer Watkins' The Variety of Rainbows Page
Shokabo Laboratory Page

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Last Updated on Mar 06 2006