There are excellent DIY spectrometers based on webcams and smartphones etc, but with the use of a “naked” CCD, the spectrometer is less of a black box.

And of course, the TCD1304 is quite large, leaving room for less tight tolerances in focus and alignment without sacrificing too much resolution.

Also, I happened to have developed a ready-to-go linear CCD module for another spectrometer project.

The TCD1304 linear CCD mounted on a circuit board with the typical drive circuit from the datasheet.

Driving and reading a CCD is a topic in itself. For more details go to the project page for linear CCD module.