Telescopes should be white.

[mickoking]

Originally Posted by astro_south

Micko - does the image below fit your ideals (white with bits of black)?

When I first got this I was going to paint over the white, but due to my apathy about doing the job the white has slowly grown on me. I may still paint it one day

It's good mate your scopes fine by me. I once owned a 350mm truss Dob and it was natural wood / silver truss colour sadly no white 'n' black to be seen (but it still looked good).

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

My 8" used to be white, I repainted it white when I remade it but couldnt keep both eye's open when observing (less strain on eyes, makes a longer night) so I decided to change the colour to Black.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/astro.../scope_obs.jpg - white scope

http://www.theastroweb.com/astronomy.../scopedome.jpg - black scope

[Thiink]

I have been thinking about changing my OTA colour for a while now, the stocko GSO gray is really boring! I was thinking white OTA leaving the dob base black, but having seen astromans black newt OTA and white box it sure looks the goods! If it isnt patented Andrew I might follow suit.

Can you painting gurus let us know whats involved with repainting an OTA in terms of stripping the current paint, priming, and choice of paint to use when repainting?

[Ziggy Stardust]

I have both a black refractor and a white one.

The white one is more impressive yeah the Borge stands out a mile, where the black Helois Skywatcher,,,just fades into the night. The meade LX is classic blue,,, and I find I can never take my mates big orange reflector serious... even though they top scopes...lol.

I do how ever, invest in a pack of those little glow sticks that they sell in the fishing stores, they tiny and made to clip on lines at night, so you can see the bites, well they tops for marking out tripod legs, tips and ends of scopes,... etc...

but what I'd love to do is Chrome my big 6inch refractor...lol... I saw a dob, with a fake chrome tube a few years back... everyone just stood and stared at it for ages at ScopeX... loooked like an Apolo launch vehicle, then some twit took some tinfoil from the kitchen and made a cone for the top... and all hell broke loose...lol

Tony

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Originally Posted by mickoking

G,day

I believe the best colour for a telescope is white (with bits of black) it is something thats been stuck in my head since I was a kid. A gleaming white tube just seems more purposefull, more profesional than other colours. What does every one else think?


For the record I don't own a white scope which is really sad.

Yes, white is the most aesthetic colour - but white paint has the worst thermal properties thanks to it's primary ingredient of Titanium Oxide (TiO or maybe TiO2 - can't remember??). This white pigment radiates heat strongly, causing the tube to cool faster than it should. With a white scope you'll find that it dews up very early and you'll have prolonged problems with tube currents.

Search around on the net, there's information available on this.

It turns out that the best behaved material for tubes is unpainted aluminium. Looks pretty too :-)

Bird

[mickoking]

Originally Posted by bird

It turns out that the best behaved material for tubes is unpainted aluminium. Looks pretty too :-)
Bird

You learn something every day Unpainted aluminium sounds great and as Ziggy aluded to chrome sounds interesting as well.

[DRCORTEX (Lance)]

Originally Posted by mickoking

You learn something every day Unpainted aluminium sounds great and as Ziggy aluded to chrome sounds interesting as well.

What, no NRL branded scopes - RED and GREEN, WHITE and RED, etc, they would have to be a big seller

ciao

Lance

[rumples riot]

Mines black with orange writing, and the other is blue with white and red writing. White does not seem to matter. Still back in the good old days white was the a good colour. Me personally, I am not fussed on the colour. I once owned a red one.