Rainbow Symphony Diffraction Gratings Slides - Linear 1000 Line/millimeters, Package of 10

There's a potential for confusion regarding how this product works. This is a "single axis" diffraction grating which means you'll see the point source of light ... and you'll see the rainbow "smear" of the color spectrum produced by that light which will appear both left and right of the point source. Hence the name "linear" diffraction grating because it's all in a nice line. However, you WILL need to hold this VERY close to your eye (perhaps an inch or so away) and will still likely need to look out to one side to see the spectrum. That's just the physics of how the prisms are working - not a product defect.One other caution... avoid touching the film with your fingers (or anything else that might leave any oily residue behind). The gratings are basically a 1000 tiny prisms in every inch. If you touch the film, your fingerprint oils will fill in the gaps between each micro-prism and that will prevent the light from being diffracted correctly.I use these to do explain spectroscopy when doing science outreach. In my case I start with an ordinary tungsten filament light bulb, but then switch to using gas tubes with various gas elements (hydrogen, helium, etc.)

These are great for understanding how lighting works. If you look at an incandescent light bulb through the slide and a little askance, you see a stretched out version of the light that looks like a rainbow.But if you look at a fluorescent source, you instead see multiple copies of the fixture in discrete colors (shades of red, green and blue) that reveal that the light comes from phosphors that emit these colors. Even if these lights claim to be "full spectrum", the actual spectrum is a discrete sampling of frequencies which together let us see as if the full spectrum were present. Various industrial lights, such as metal halide parking lot lights, have unique and identifiable spectrums.If you want to tell one type of light from another, these slide are infinitely more portable and cheaper than $5000 electronic meters! That said, people don't immediately get the knack of looking askance at a light through a slide. A fancy meter will work better for customer presentations.

These gratings work well. I received 25 gratings as advertised. and I'm glad I did. I only needed a few gratings for DIY spectrometer I was making. 4 or 5 of these gratings had either some nasty fingerprints or some sort of dust/dirt. The rest of the 20 were acceptable. I saw some other offers for a little less money but only for 10 gratings. The rejection rate is high but if you receive 20 out of 25 usable ones it was just fine with me

These are a Hell of a lot better than you would think, especially considering the cost. Make Excellent spectroscopes.

These things are amazing. Put in front of camera and analyze with available online software. Can determine what elements are in a light source.

Works very well. The film that makes up the grating is very easy to damage therefore handle with care. These gratings perform much better than CD gratings.

These are fun little educational tools.

They do the job