Which scope gave you the best star colours?

[Pingster]

Last night i was stargazing with my refactor and thought... how odd, the star colours are much better in my Helios Quantum 7.4 100mm binoculars? Reds, oranges, blues.

So which of your scopes gives you the most beautiful star colours? And i dont mean false colour 

 

 

[Alien 13]

For me it was an old military tank/missile launcher scope it had very low magnification but no CA at all and I mean none everything else since then has been a compromise there is always some detectable CA even with the best fracs or a newt. The point of this is that I believe that even the tiniest amount of CA from the scope or eyepiece will influence star colour.

Alan

[ollypenrice]

For me, probably the TEC140. The 20 inch, being a Newt, has no false colour but the stars can be pretty bright and the higher magnitudes tend to look a bit white. Of course a good way to enjoy star colour is to rack them slightly out of focus. I have some good Leica bins which are also great on star colour. It's also pretty good in our SCTs. Quite a hard question to answer. I suspect that the right night has a lot to do with it. Maybe a bit of haze does no harm?

Olly

[Commanderfish]

Triplet Apos, like the TEC, but in my case the Explore Scientific ED 80 and ED 127. The Triplet lenses focus all three main wavelengths of light (RGB) to the same point, whereas Achro fracs focus only two out of three wavelengths. These scopes combined with Ethos eyepieces in particular give amazing colour rendition. 

 

There is a problem with the triplet ED80. It is the gateway to a very expensive Apo habit. 

[Alien 13]

The problem with triplets is that they only focus RGB to the same or similar point there is no guarantee that the yellows, violets or oranges are well corrected.

Alan

[Stu]

I tend to agree with Olly, it depends upon conditions, and the magnititude of the target. In general, I would say the Tak FC-100 does a pretty good job on most stars, but if it's dim enough then I would say larger aperture helps.

Recently I got lovely colours in Alberio with my 65mm reflector, showing that aperture isn't everything.

[Joe12345]

My 4" achro last night on Albireo.....WOW! I tried to take a picture with my phone, but the mount was a bit shaky - the colours are still the same though.

[Moonshane]

I think it's a tie between my 120ed which almost always provides good colours and my 6" f11 newt which does so especially at high power.

[Ben the Ignorant]

My 80mm triplet for its purity, and my 300mm dob for the intensity of light.

[John]

All my scopes seem to do a good job on star colours and I think Olly makes a good point about seeing conditions playing a role as well. Maybe observer age as well ? - I understand that younger eyes perceive subtle colour differences better than older ones (like mine !).

If I had to single one of my scopes out it would be the TMB LZOS 130 F/9.2 triplet. The presentation of stars with this scope is absolutely superb. I'm seeing subtle differences in close pairs that hitherto had passed me by.

 

[Rick Towns]

My Explore Scientific ED-102 triplet gave wonderful star colours. That is about all I miss about it (I use an 8" SCT now that gives nice star colours - but somehow it's not quite as good).

[Ben the Ignorant]

Seems that everyone who sells an apo regrets it.

[Rick Towns]

1 hour ago, Ben the Ignorant said:

Seems that everyone who sells an apo regrets it.

I certainly do not regret selling my APO - my SCT is much better in just about every way.

[Pingster]

On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 17:27, Rick Towns said:

My Explore Scientific ED-102 triplet gave wonderful star colours. That is about all I miss about it (I use an 8" SCT now that gives nice star colours - but somehow it's not quite as good).

A focal reducer may help as it will tigthen up the stars? I rember putting a focal reducer in my 8se. Stars looked so much better. 

[astro mick]

An old Japan made Vixen 80mm Achromat.At F11.5, it gives text book images and lovely star colours.

Please dont dismiss these old scopes for visual use.

[Skyline]

My Celestron 100ed at f9

[nightfisher]

I would say at low to medium magnification my 150 pro Mak does a pretty darn good job

[Patbloke]

My 102 Altair Astro Starwave Frac..... pin sharp stars full of colour 

[allen g]

As for amateur scopes I think apo refractors - my 4" TV show great color.  BUT a week ago I had the life time experience of spending an evening viewing through the Hooker 100" telescope on Mt Wilson, California. YES that is the one that Hubble used to discover that the universe expands.  We observed a number of objects such as the snowball and saturn nebulae - colors were out of this word.  For the first time we viewed a hydrogen star (never heard of it) - a white star with a beautiful red ring surrounding it.  So, at 100 in a good location you can see real colors. Saturn & Neptune were also a knock out. This was dream come true experience.

[Stu]

7 hours ago, allen g said:

As for amateur scopes I think apo refractors - my 4" TV show great color.  BUT a week ago I had the life time experience of spending an evening viewing through the Hooker 100" telescope on Mt Wilson, California. YES that is the one that Hubble used to discover that the universe expands.  We observed a number of objects such as the snowball and saturn nebulae - colors were out of this word.  For the first time we viewed a hydrogen star (never heard of it) - a white star with a beautiful red ring surrounding it.  So, at 100 in a good location you can see real colors. Saturn & Neptune were also a knock out. This was dream come true experience.

Now that really is a once in a lifetime experience, must have been stunning!

[chiltonstar]

It does sound stunning,doesn't it? But I bet that if you turned the 100" on Albireo or Almach, it would have been disappointing - too many photons hitting the retina. For me (my old eyes may be atypical), the trick is to have the star image not too bright (whited-out) and not too dim (Purkinje effect), and then given good optics, the colours are at their best. Almach a few nights back really did look like this (image with my ED80).

Chris

[Stu]

16 minutes ago, chiltonstar said:

It does sound stunning,doesn't it? But I bet that if you turned the 100" on Albireo or Almach, it would have been disappointing - too many photons hitting the retina. For me (my old eyes may be atypical), the trick is to have the star image not too bright (whited-out) and not too dim (Purkinje effect), and then given good optics, the colours are at their best. Almach a few nights back really did look like this (image with my ED80).

Chris

Lovely image Chris. I'm going to try one through my Alkor at some point, it gives really nice star colours too