small scatter plot markers in matplotlib are always black
scatter([1,2,3], [2,4,5], s=1, facecolor='0.5', lw = 0)
This sets the markersize to 1 (s=1), the facecolor to gray (facecolor='0.5'), and the linewidth to 0 (lw=0).
If the marker has no face (cannot be filled, e.g. '+','x'), then the edgecolor has to be set instead of c, and lw should not be 0:
scatter([1,2,3], [2,4,5], marker='+', edgecolor='r')
The following will no work
scatter([1,2,3], [2,4,5], s=1, marker='+', facecolor='0.5', lw = 0)
because the edge/line will not be displayed, so nothing will be displayed.