Increasing the precision of process monitoring may be improved if the sensors take the form of travelling probes riding along with the flowing materials in the manufacturing process rather than sampleonly when the process moves passed the sensors fixed location. The probe includes an outer housing hermetically sealed from the flowing materials, and a light source for transmitting light through awindow in the housing onto the flowing materials. A spatially variable optical filter (SVF) captures light returning from the flowing materials, and separates the captured light into a spectrum of constituent wavelength signals for transmission to a detector array, which provides a power reading for each constituent wavelength signal.