Using Color Filters With Telescopes

Video Transcript

"Once you've chosen some telescope and some eye pieces, there's some very low cost accessories that will really add to your enjoyment of using your telescope. When you look at the planets, many of them have incredible detail on them. Jupiter is beautiful to look at. The first time you see Jupiter with its little diamond gems around its four of its moons, you'll be hooked. I was. I remember the first time I've ever seen it, I was seven years old. I wish I would have had these. Many of the details on some of the large Jovian planets will come out very nicely with just colored filters. This is literally dyed glass. Different features respond to different colors. Saturn's a very pale, but probably the most beautiful planet to look at. But if you use a blue filter, you can gain a lot of detail on the, a light blue one I use, you can gain a lot of detail on the clouds. You can use an orange one, and believe it or not, an orange on mars you can see more of the black detail and the polar caps. Color filters vary, usually between ten and twenty dollars a piece. They go by a numbered system. This is a twenty three A. There's a complete number system for you and the glass top's usually a Hoya glass. Like I said, there's twelve. There's fun things you can do with them as a matter of fact. Filters are usually threaded top and bottom, which means if I want to take this twenty three A red and this eighty two A light blue, I can actually screw them on top of each other and then stick them in my eye piece. And when you buy a quality eye piece, you'll notice that they are threaded on the bottom. All your eye pieces will be threaded, and they'll accept the filter. They thread in, and of course, like I said, the top of the filter is also threaded so you can stack. Many features are enhanced by using this on the planets. I really enjoy them. Two, my two favorites are probably light blue and orange. The moon, if you look at the moon through your telescope, is going to be too bright. So there's actually filters called moon filters. They're neutral density. They change nothing of the color, they just knock down the brightness a little bit so you can see the contrast. Because if you look through a, at the moon, you're seeing it many, many, many times as bright as it is by the naked eye. And actually it may make your eye water to look at it. So the moon filters are nice. And then again, you can use the color filters on the moon and it actually brings out, because the moon is mostly gray tones, it brings out some extra detail too. Really enjoy them. Like I said, about ten dollars is an average price. You may be fourteen or fifteen, and there's twelve general colors in them. Great enhancement to your telescope right there and very low cost. You can buy a whole set usually for under a hundred dollars, and you'll keep them no matter what telescope you have later, you can keep your same filters. Wonderful product to buy to go with your telescope."