Seeing celestial objects in white

Hi Paul

I haven't used a Barlow yet but hopefully i'll have one in a couple of days, so i 'll let you know how it performs. From my understanding of them they do increase the size of the object you are looking at but at a cost of sharpness. Objects can become slightly blurred. This doesnt seem to bother most people and they are happy to sacrifice a little sharpness for a larger image. Overall the reviews i have read about Barlows are positive. So i'm looking forward to seeing what its all about.

Hi Paul,
I think that the 'whiteness' of your objects is down to the fact that you are using a small sized scope. If you were privy to a much larger scope, you would therefore see a larger object allowing scrutiny of more detail and colour. What you're seeing is a classic example of a small aperture instrument (the Skylux), although, due to Mars' close proximity, it should appear bright orange in the scope. If you had access to even a 6 inch reflector, you will start to notice that Saturn has bands, Mars a dark patch or 2, and Jupiter has clouds.

Then let the aperture fever set in!

Seanie.

I'd put it largely down to seeing (or course size does matter also). I can often see really good colour on Mars with my Celestron 90mm f/11 refractor.

Haven't been able to use it more then twice cuz of the weather so i really cant wait to test drive it properly.

To boost the 70mm..............maybe a Barlow 2X is the ideal solution for you. Cheap (ish) but effective from as far as i can tell.

A barlow won't enhance detail from a small point of light as that obtained in the Skylux. It will just make a small bright object larger and more diffuse. I don't even both bother with the barlows on my 70mm and 80mm refractors and 72mm reflector.

No it wont enhance details but would it not maybe allow more colour?

What about filters instead? more colour or just gimmicks?

I dont know so i am asking for myself really. I guess that barlows would work the same for a 90mm as a 70,80mm?

I'm seeing Mars and Saturn as almost pure white too and I'm using a 12 inch reflector. Its not my eyesight as I did some online tests recommended by some guys over at CloudyNights forums and I passed those Colour Vision tests with flying colours. 100% perfect colour vision here!

Using filters like the Baader Moon and Skyglow and even in combination with half of my Variable polorizing moon filter only dims the 2 planets, it does not bring out any more colour for me. Same with fitting an apeture mask. Dims and gets rid of glare but its now a dimmer white disc.

I know bad seeing washes out detail but does it also wash out colour? The OP's problem might be that his scope doesn't gather enough light for the colour receptors in his eyes to interpret colour and my problem could be mine gathers too much .....but then again like I mentioned earlier. If I fit an 4-5in offset apeture mask to mine I still don't see any colour, just a dimmer white disc.

I suppose I won't know for sure if it is an optical problem/difference/ with my scope or whether its psychological interpretation of colour, until I get to an observing meet and get to look through a few scopes.

When that eventually happens I'll either find that what someone was interpreting as a definate yellow/light orange disc looked exactly like what I was seeing in my scope and yet I disregarded the slight yellow/orange tint and called it white. Kind of a glass half empty, glass half full difference of interpretation........OR.......I might find that I can see colour better through their scopes and then I have to rule out any problems in my mirror, or my collimation etc. If they are all fine and I still don't see colour in mine then it simply boils down to the fact that a large apeture while good for DSO's isn't so great for planets because its greater susceptability to seeing and over brightness washes out colour.

Time then to invest in a 4inch APo!!