Replies

With amateur telescopes (and even larger ones) it is very hard to see any color. The only way to see color in astronomical objects is to attach a camera to your telescope. Then you take a picture where the shutter on the camera lens stays open for a long time in order to capture the color.

If you just are looking at sky objects through a good quality telescope without a camera, you will only see black and white colors.

This is really the dirty little secret of astronomy and buying a telescope. No color to be seen unless you take a picture and develop it.

As for your Dad, if he got a good Meade telescope, he will see many cool things. Start with the planets. Buy an astronomy magazine at your newstand to find out where the planets are in the sky at the present time. Astronomy magazine and Sky and telescope magazine are the two biggest. Maybe you can just go to their web site to find the planet locations. Then after the planets, go to galaxies, globular star clusters, nebula's, etc.

My Dad does have a pretty good Mead telescope. He got it for Christmas, and I know it was about a $800 - 1000 range machine. The trouble is that we tried to view the larger stars and saw only a bright light upclose. We even bought a higher powered lense. The only thing we can see in interesting detail is the moon. :o( Maybe we need to take a class to learn how to use it. It just seems that we'd be able to see about as much moon detail with a cheaper, low quality telescope. I know we should be able to see more.