Mitic et al (2011 Opt. Lett. 36 3699) proposed a spectroscopic method of the in situ measurement of the size and optical properties of spherical micro- and nanoparticles with monotonically variable size. The method requires three optical channels: one for the illumination of a particle suspension by white light and two for the measurements of the spectra of scattered light. This allows one to determine the optical properties of the particles in a wide spectral range. In this work an extended description of the experimental setup and data analysis technique are given. Performance of the method is illustrated on particle suspensions in plasmas, exhibiting increase and decrease of particle size.