Ann wrote:Well, when I have looked at it, I haven't been able to see much color at all. Of course our telescope is located right outside a city of 300,000 people and another city of a million people just some thirty miles away.
Bright stars, though, unlike planets, are always bright enough to make their colors known even in light-polluted surroundings.
Interesting. I find that the colors of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn are best seen in late twilight, when the sky isn't completely dark (I don't have any light pollution to use for this purpose <g>). With a really dark sky, the contrast between background and planet seems to make it a little harder to see subtle color. But I think star colors become more obvious under dark skies.
In any case, telescope aperture is not a factor in seeing color on planets. A telescope can never make a planet appear brighter than it does to the naked eye. It can make it appear dimmer, of course. Increased aperture will allow you to reach a higher magnification before the image becomes dimmer than it is unaided. But at low magnification, there is no advantage to a larger aperture at all.