Cheapest scope for seeing colour...

[Nighteyes]

Ok, I've looked through many of the threads here regarding beginner scopes and whatnot. I'm looking into getting one myself and have been unsure of what I want to see. But the one thing I know I definitely want to see is colour.

To give you an idea, I'd like to look at Mars and see its orange glow, I'd like to look at Orion's nebula (M42 I believe? I'm learning!) and see the spectacular array of colours; I don't want to look at M42 and see a grey smudge.

Basically, I don't want to spend money and only see shades of grey. I'm not considering imaging right now - my only camera is the 2mp one on my Rubbish phone! - I just want something for observing for the moment.

So with that in mind, and with a budget of £300 as the absolute maximum, what would you guys recommendd? Or is that budget too low for my expectations?

Thanks in advance fellas!

[room16]

There is a skywatcher 300p in the for sale section, at £300, its a steal.

I wouldn't hold up much hope on seeing colour though, you may see some star colour and maybe a hue of greens/blues/reds on some nebula and planets, but i wouldn't expect hubble quality!!

Because you'll need a much bigger scope, i would suspect 20" plus, to even get any real definate suggestion of natural colour to most nebula.

[Nighteyes]

So ... I'm asking for too much?

[room16]

Honestly, yes.

Don't forget, the weather is often not in our favour and if you are wanting to see anything decent then that is obviously going to have an effect. On a really good nite, with my 250px i can make out colour variations on mars and a small hint of colour to the orion nebula, this said, my daughter is only 5 and she has often descibed a coloured view.

My eyes are actually really good, thankfully and with decent eyepieces you will get faint colouration, but please, don't hope for hubble or even the quality of what you see on pictures on this and many other forums and telescope adverts. Its the worst thing you can do, it will only dissapoint, but at the same time, you have to realise that you are, in effect, lookin back in time as well as out to a very very great distance. Camera's and processing gives great images, but even they don't touch seeing them for yourself through the eyepiece

[TopHouse]

It's not necessarily the scope, it's your eyes, your retina contains photoreceptors called 'rods and cones' Cones are what help you see colour but only work well in light, Rods are what you use in the night but these aren't very sensitive to colour, that's why everything looks grey at night.

[crepitis]

You should see colour in the planets with a moderate scope, even with the naked eye Mars has a reddish hue.

As for DSO's the colours only show up in photographs Im afraid.

[SteveP]

Hi Nighteyes

Regrettably, your expecations aren't in accord with your budget!

However, £300 will buy you a decent scope to start with

eg Dobsonians - Skywatcher Skyliner 200P Dobsonian

Reflectors - Skywatcher Explorer 150PL EQ3-2

But, and it's a big but, you won't see the colour of DSO's in the way you would in a photographic, even the most basic. You'll see colour on Mars, for example, and certainly on double stars. But you need to manage your own expectations. Even on the incredibly large lightbuckets, say a 20" Dob, the colour such as it is in nothing like a photograph. Most observations of DSO's - nebula, galaxies, even most globular clusters (large groups of stars) are greyish and lack colour but fantastic all the same

HTH

Steve

[John]

Just to echo what the others have said here, seeing colours in deep sky objects, with one or two exceptions (and even then it's only the mildest hint of colour) is just not possible with the normal run of equipment available to and affordable by amateurs.

Even if you had 10 x your budget this would be the case.

This probably won't come as a real suprise to you as you will have seen this theme coming up regularly in the other threads you have read here.

If capturing the colours is important to you then perhaps the photography / imaging branch of the hobby might be more of interest ? - you may well need to add a fair bit to your budget to get into that though.

[Nighteyes]

Ah [removed word], I thought those pictures were too good to be true. Ah well. Ok, so ... let's scale back my expectation somewhat. I still gaze up at the night sky and find I could look at it for hours with just the naked eye. So, will I be impressed with what I see out of either of those two mentioned above? I like the price of the explorer, but doesn't the Skyliner have a larger aperture? I keep seeing things like "aperture is king!" ...

Thanks for the quick replies though.

[barkis]

If you want to see colour, then the place to look is Double Stars. There are plenty of them, and the colours of the components often contrast greatly, for example, Albireo. Bets Cygni,are Blue and Gold, well, Orange perhaps.

Have a look at some here.

Ron..

http://www.munisingwebsites.com/lookum/doublestargallery.html#Star5

[Doc]

With that 300p dob, you should see a little colour in nebulas and as Ron has said colour in stars. Planets will show colour but you will only see galaxies as grey.

In general the bigger the scope the more colour you might see.

[pvaz]

When I first started, a few months ago, initially I thought I would see some color. Much like you, I found out it wasn't the case before I even bought the scope.

On planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Mars) and some stars I see color easily. On DSOs I don't (just a hint of green in M42 on some nights and blue on the blue snowball, i mean they are still gray but seam to have a shade of green/blue to them). I also expected to see more structure on galaxies/nebula, the fact is most look like a gray faint smudge. Only seen structure on M51 under rural dark skies with excellent seeing conditions.

Even with all this readjustment of expectations I'm still loving the hobby and I find I barely watch tv this days. I just hope for more breaks in the clouds so I can get out there.

If you have a genuine interest in astronomy the mere fact that you'll be seeing objects, so far away, with your own eyes, from your backyard is very rewarding. After the observations I do like to see photos of them to see their full color but that doesn't remove the fun of being out there finding and observing things for myself.

[Doc]

Very well said Paulo...

Just the fact that you have tracked an object down thats thousands of light years away is astonishing.

[Dimitris]

But the one thing I know I definitely want to see is colour.

To give you an idea, I'd like to look at Mars and see its orange glow, I'd like to look at Orion's nebula (M42 I believe? I'm learning!) and see the spectacular array of colours; I don't want to look at M42 and see a grey smudge.

So with that in mind, and with a budget of £300 as the absolute maximum, what would you guys recommendd? Or is that budget too low for my expectations?

OK then, brace yourself, the news are BAD. Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Neptune ok, some color you will see. Also some bright stars (Albireo, Antares etc). Nebulae...NO, Galaxies....again NO, planetary Nebulae, ABSOLUTELY NO!!!!

The telescopes we can afford, even at ten times your budget will not bring color in your eyes.....BUT

There is beauty beyond description in the blazzing shades of gray of deep space. We cherish it, you will learn to love it.

Regards

Dimitris

[brantuk]

"Aperture is King" is correct but misleading as far as colour goes. Aperture allows you to capture more light giving access to more dso's, but only in the grey scale. For the solar system though you will see brown and white stripes on jupiter, mars is reddish, saturn is like a pinball in the middle of a large silver washer. You should see some of the blue hues on the further out planets like neptune, uranus, pluto.

To capture colour on dso's you'll need to do long exposure photography and image processing - really quite expensive.

[room16]

And if you do eventually take some photo's, when you process them, the awe of what you have PERSONALLY captured, is often much more gratifying (after a bit of expense and hairpulling) than seeing others pictures.

Don't get me wrong, seeing some of the photo's on here really are jawdroppingly good, Olly's, TJ's and many others have really blown my mind. But when i got out there the other nite and used my unmodded dslr to take a piccie of orion and just a patch of sky near cassiopeia, i was more than happy with what came out. But i know with more work i can do better.

But with regards to will you be impressed by what you can see through a scope compaired to just with the naked eye....hell yea you will, especially the likes of the moon, the planets and their moons, the double stars and clusters, the faint but visible galaxies and nebula. Its all worth lookin at mate, you would be surprised just how much more you see when you spend an hour out in the dark, then add some binoculars and watch the amount of stars you see, multiply beyond what you thought was really there lol.

A telescope with large aperture will hoover up the light in the right area's and for galaxies and fainter nebula, they are always a bonus.

Dont be put off by what the downsides of what our unfortunately inadequite eyes are capable of, atleast we can see something

[johnkirkpatrick]

I too had started to expect great purple and reds and blues when viewing DSO's and was a bit dissapointed but even still, now knowing the truth of the matter, I dont think al ever stop looking up into the vastness of space and time. Theres so much to see and so much more I havent. And I look up and wonder how such beauty even got there in the first place. Its truly remarkable in every single way.

[NickH]

We saw colour with a 14" intes in Spain in M42 (three of us independently) with some Ethos EP's

but agree with all of the above

[Matthew.Blake]

"Aperture is King" is correct but misleading as far as colour goes. Aperture allows you to capture more light giving access to more dso's, but only in the grey scale. For the solar system though you will see brown and white stripes on jupiter, mars is reddish, saturn is like a pinball in the middle of a large silver washer. You should see some of the blue hues on the further out planets like neptune, uranus, pluto.

To capture colour on dso's you'll need to do long exposure photography and image processing - really quite expensive.

Technically with enough aperture you could see them in colour. I reckon with an 80" scope I should see M42 in decent colour given the views I've had of it through my 8". Anyone want to lend me the GDP of Ireland so I can by a new scope?

[NickH]

60" on Mt Palomar you see colour in lots of stuff!

Speaking last night above the obsession dobs, and you can see colour in those from all accounts (20" etc)

Cheapest way possibly is a huge dob

[oceanheadted]

Don't be to ambitious with the size of your first scope, or at least check them out in reality before comitting yourself. The big ones don't look too big in the pictures, but when you have to start carrying them around the size quickly becomes an issue unless you are well built.

[SteveP]

[60" on Mt Palomar you see colour in lots of stuff!]

Don't be to ambitious with the size of your first scope, or at least check them out in reality before comitting yourself.

Do you think the Mt Palomar option would be a bit too ambitious?

[Nighteyes]

Ok, let's say I've decided to broaden my horizon a little ... as in, expand my budget ...

Would I be happy with what I see through that? It's the Skywatcher Explorer 200P EQ5.

[NickH]

Not much in the way of colour is the answer...mostly everything (deep sky) is going to be grey..

But... nice option..

Mt Palomar...yup...a bit ambitious

[themos]

I reckon you'd see colour in that