A Fabry-Perot system makes use of a tunable interference filter. The filter is tuned in wavelength by adjusting one of
A picture taken with a Fabry-Perot system covers multiple wavelengths because the etalon is located in the collimated beam between the two elements of the focal reducer. At each etalon setting, one observes an image which has rings of constant wavelength. By tuning the etalon to give different wavelengths at each location, one build up a ``data cube'', through which observations at a constant wavelength carve some surface. Consequently, to extract constant wavelength information from the Fabry-Perot takes some reasonably sophisticated reduction techniques. It is further complicated by the fact that to get accurate quantitative information, one requires that the atmospheric conditions be stable over the entire time when the data cube is being taken.