Dispersion in an eye of rutile

[VapidLapid]

I had had my eye on this cat's eye rutile at the gemtrader for a long while now. I kept procrastinating telling myself that it was too soft, or more of a stone than a gem, too much money....I broke down and bought it last week and I am really glad. Rutile has a dark red body color and an adamantine luster so it looks like polished hematite, silicon, or balls of mercury. The red color can be seen with transmitted light, though with most light reflected off the surface and then what does get in being filtered by the dark body color the red isn't seen often. The refractive index of rutile is greater than diamond 2.6-2.9. The dispersion is higher as well. The dispersion is rarely seen since light has to get and and get back out to show the dispersion. I had no expectation of seeing it in this cat's eye. Turns out the eye itself is exactly where one can see the dispersion. Here following are photos showing the adamantine luster, the red body color and the dispersion of the eye.

 

[VapidLapid]

 

[VapidLapid]

 

[VapidLapid]

 

[T L]

Wow, that's really cool. Thanks for the shots. The stone reminds me of cuprite.

 

[Arcadian]

OMGEEEEE that so KEEEEEEWWWWLLLLL!! How soft is it? I've seen that on GT's website but its been some time so I can't recall specifics of the stone at all.

-A

 

[brandy_z28]

WAY COOL VL!

Thank you for sharing that with us.

 

[VapidLapid]

Most of us are familiar with rutile as an inclusion from microscopic rutile silk in colored stones to bigger tufts of the stuf in quartz. it is the rutile silk in sapphires that that we look for as an indicator of heating and that can cause the asterism of stars and in chrysoberyl the cat eye. So what causes the cat eye in the rutile? Is it rutilated rutile, and if so how would that be any different from rutile? Is there another silky inclusion present? perhaps a twin crystal structure that might account for microscopic parallel disruptions of the lattice that then act on light like silk does?

 

[Pandora II]

Very nice!

They are very hard to find. I recently aquired a 6-rayed star-rutile that looks very similar in that it's metallic-looking. I'd never seen one before and grabbed it the second I laid eyes on it. Have tried to find some more since with no luck and was told they are very rare...

 

[T L]

I'm very attracted to stones with metallic luster. I have a cuprite, and a green diamond that appears to have metallic luster. The cuprite definitely has metallic luster. I have to check out rutile one of these days. Again, very cool, thanks for the photos.

 

[iLander]

Wow! This is really cool, VL!

It looks like what you'd see if you were looking into a telescope at midnight lightning.

Yup. That's it's official name "midnight lightning".

Cause I said so.

I have some antique black tourmaline earrings, and they're black tourmaline with the same type of metallic reflection. Very cool.

 

[Barrett]

I have seen tons of rutile but I don't think I have ever seen a catseye rutile. Very cool, Vapid and thanks for posting.