High-speed optical Spectroscopy

The large surveys and sensitive instruments of modern astronomy are turning ever more examples of variable objects, many of which are extending the parameter space to testing theories of stellar evolution and accretion. Future projects such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will only add more challenging candidates to this list. Understanding such objects often requires fast spectroscopy, but the trend for ever larger detectors makes this difficult. In this contribution I outline the science made possible by high-speed spectroscopy, and consider how a combination of the well-known progress in computer technology combined with recent advances in CCD detectors may finally enable it to become a standard tool of astrophysics.