This page last modified 2011 December 19
Colour Filters for Astronomy
Red | Orange | Yellow | Green | Blue | Violet | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sun | Use with mylar solar filter to restore colour | |||||
Moon | Dark Red (#29) is better than a neutral density filter for visual lunar observation | Greatly enhances features | ||||
Mercury | Reduces sky brightness during daylight and twilight observations | Reduces sky brightness during daylight and twilight observations | Reveals some surface markings at twilight | Enhances faint features | ||
Venus | Use during daylight to reduce sky brightness | Use during daylight to reduce sky brightness | Reveals some surface features | Reveals cloud patterns | Reveals some cloud detail | Improves cloud contrast |
Mars | Enhances polar caps | Darkens maria and canali | Darkens maria and canali | Increases contrast of polar caps and dust storms | Improves polar caps and some surface features | Improves polar caps |
Jupiter | Enhances detail in belts and festoons | General enhancement of surface detail | Improves contrast of Great Red Spot | General enhancement of red belts and Great Red Spot | ||
Saturn | Enhances bands | General enhancement and clarifies Cassini's division | Enhances low-contrast features | Enhances detail in the rings | ||
Uranus | Shows some detail in large telescopes (>250mm) | |||||
Neptune | Shows some detail in large telescopes (>250mm) | |||||
Comets | Enhances dust tails | Can reveal some structure in brighter comets | Increases detail in ion tails | Can reveal some detail in bright comets | ||
(Notes) | Do not use on small telescopes (<150mm) |