Agena 2" Color / Planetary Filter - #21 Orange

Color filters can be very useful for enhancing your views of the Moon and the planets. Depending on the atmospheric conditions, the telescope being used, the observer's experience, and the planet being observed or photographed, the advantages of color filters can be anywhere from subtle to dramatic. The right filter can make all the difference between seeing several small craters in the floor of Clavius on the Moon or not; seeing five or six swirls in Jupiter's belts or not; or seeing the inner Crepe Ring of Saturn or not.

Agena's 2" color/planetary filters are manufactured from the purest optical glass and are dyed-in-the-mass (not simply "color coated") for premium performance. They thread into the barrels of virtually any 2" telescope eyepiece. Each filter cell has a male and female 2" filter thread (M48x0.75) on opposite sides, so multiple filters can be stacked to achieve selective filtration of the visual color spectrum. The clear aperture is 43mm and each filter comes in a protective plastic storage case.

The #21 Orange Filter reduces or blocks transmission of blue and green wavelengths. It sharpens boundaries between yellow-orange areas and blue-green regions on Mars, resulting in a darkening of edge-detail in the Maria. Use it on Jupiter and Saturn to sharpen contrast and enhance detail in the belts and polar regions and to bring out the Great Red Spot. The filter also enhances viewing of festoons and polar regions. It will also slightly increase surface details on Saturn, particularly highlighting the bands and blue polar regions. This one behaves very similarly to the #15 but gives slightly more contrast

The filter greatly enhances lunar features. It can be used to reduce sky brightness during daytime observations to improve viewing of Venus and to reveal surface features on Mercury. When used on comets in large telescopes, the orange filter enhances definition of dust tails and comet-heads.