Much advice, opinions but honestly am stuck.

[Steve55]

This is all about a Barlow. I have an Orien 6" f5. The main EP i use is a Hyperion Mk III , marvelous . I understand there are limits to Magnification on any equipment, this EP allows me to change easily the mag for the optimal result . But really i read a lot on this make that make , i use this i use that make ,mode Ect Ect. Honestly am no better off than when i started looking, my inexperience certainly holding me back here am sure.

I do not want to spend a larger anount when a better choice  when a cheaper  Barlow may be a better choice for my equipment rather than just buy the most expensive or just hope as i have done and it turned out to be a little disapointing on results mainly because i thought  x2 it and job done , well that went out the window din it :-). So realy i need simple advice on what is certainly a must have within a Barlow I.E Min standard type of lense. Hopefully and if usefull based on the equipment i have.  Thanks Folks for your help. 

[Astro_Baby]

I am going to be awkward.  I never use a Barlow as I find it almost always degrades the views.  I have tried a few and never ben happy with the result.  Initially I had a bog standard Skywatcher De Luxe one that came with a scope.  I tried it with various lenses (including a Hyperion) and it always made the view mushy.  People told me it was down to the complex lens in stuff like Hyperions and/or the Barlow was rubbish.  I tried a few different Barlows (including the Celestron one which every used to rate) and found the same even with Plossls. 

People have told me its sky conditions, my telescope, my eyepieces, my eyes etc but the bottom line for me has been whatever scope I have used and whatever EP I have plugged in the view always seems to deteriorate.  Now this may not be rue with a fabby doo Televue Barlow (pardon me  - Powermate) but for the cost of that I could have quite a few EPs - in fact thats what I have.  Quite a few EPs.

[LukeSkywatcher]

OK, so you have a 8-24mm zoom. Its a very nice thing to have. It essentially gives you a complete range of eyepieces being:

8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24. It can be tricky to get the focus right on the uneven numbers:9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23mm, but doable. Most likely you or even i (i have the same zoom) will not notice the difference between say 10mm and 11mm.............but it is there. 

I know the zoom can be added to with a hyperion zoom barlow lens, but i dont see the point in using a barlow with the zoom eyepiece. 

As AB said, adding another lens to the optical train can and usually does (but not always) degrade the image. If you have a low,medium and high powered eyepiece.........thats about all you need. 

The thing i find about barlows is that everyone who is new to astronomy automatically wants one or thinks they need one. Most scopes come with a 10mm eyepiece and maybe a 20mm or 25mm eyepiece. So a barlow is pretty much obsolete. All you are doing is adding a 5mm and a 12.5mm to your collection. 5mm is probably going to be too much magnification on many scopes and lets be honest..............to the untrained eye, there is going to be little difference between 10mm and 12.5mm.

As you progress into astronomy you will learn what works for you and your scope, and that 2x,3x barlow you bought in the beginning will sit in your eyepiece case or wherever..........gathering dust.

I know i'm gonna be shot down on this comment, but i stand by it. The only case where i can think of a barlow being used and useful is for imaging and i think 5x is the standard there.

Ive had 3 different barlows in 7-8 yrs and now use none.

Just my 2 cents.  

[Sirius Starwatcher]

Hi Steve I'm using. Skywatcher delux x2 Barlow which is more than adequate for my needs

[Davey-T]

Isn't this the one designed for it ?

Dave

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-planetarium/baader-hyperion-zoom-barlow.html

[D4N]

That's the one that came with mine. Makes sense to use that as it is specifically designed to work well with that EP.

It certainly doesn't degrade the view, when set to the same magnification with or without the Barlow the view is just as good.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Steve55]

Isn't this the one designed for it ?

Dave

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-planetarium/baader-hyperion-zoom-barlow.html

I had seen that Dav , but as earlier stated by Paul a Zoom Barlow seemed a little much baring in mind i have a zoom on the eye piece why would i need a zoom on a  Barlow. Only having a 6" f5 scope would it actually benefit from having extra zoom on the Barlow rather than a normal Barlow.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I had seen that Dav , but as earlier stated by Paul a Zoom Barlow seemed a little much baring in mind i have a zoom on the eye piece why would i need a zoom on a  Barlow. Only having a 6" f5 scope would it actually benefit from having extra zoom on the Barlow rather than a normal Barlow.

 My point was that you dont need any barlow of any kind to use with the Hyperion 8-24mm zoom eyepiece. Take a 2x barlow and the zoom as an example.

The click-stops on the eyepiece are: 8mm,10mm,12mm,14mm,16mm,18mm,20mm,22mm,24mm

A 2x barlow added to the zoom will effectively give you: 4mm,5mm,6mm,7mm,8mm,9mm,10mm,11mm,12mm,.......(as well as what the zoom already offers) 

You pretty much have all of those in the zoom eyepiece already, without having to spend any money on a 2x barlow. You are just spending money on doubling up on the magnification you already have within the zoom eyepiece.

[Steve55]

 My point was that you dont need any barlow of any kind to use with the Hyperion 8-24mm zoom eyepiece. Take a 2x barlow and the zoom as an example.

The click-stops on the eyepiece are: 8mm,10mm,12mm,14mm,16mm,18mm,20mm,22mm,24mm

A 2x barlow added to the zoom will effectively give you: 4mm,5mm,6mm,7mm,8mm,9mm,10mm,11mm,12mm,.......(as well as what the zoom already offers) 

You pretty much have all of those in the zoom eyepiece already, without having to spend any money on a 2x barlow. You are just spending money on doubling up on the magnification you already have within the zoom eyepiece.

Yeah i understand your point Luke, it would not be a X2 , but a  X2.5 thereby giving me the difference in Magnification to maximise the ep use. But still is there  minimum quality that all ye of experience would suggest.

[Davey-T]

 My point was that you dont need any barlow of any kind to use with the Hyperion 8-24mm zoom eyepiece. Take a 2x barlow and the zoom as an example.

According to Baader it changes it from an 8-24 to a 3.5 to 10, whether you need this range depends on your scope and what you're observing.

Dave

[LukeSkywatcher]

According to Baader it changes it from an 8-24 to a 3.5 to 10, whether you need this range depends on your scope and what you're observing.

Dave

 True.

However

I have an 8" scope and would never dream of using a 3.5mm EP with it. So personally i cant see a 6" scope needing such magnification. 

Maybe i'm completely off track. 

If im thinking of the right scope, it has a FL of 750mm. Its a 150mm diameter scope. If you do the maths and divide the FL by 3.5mm (ep/barlow) you end up with a magnification of about 215x.

I'm thinking that is too much for the weather conditions we get in this part of the world. Id expect to be able to push the scope up to about 175x.

Again im no expert but in my mind a scope works best at a magnification which is equal to or just above the diameter of the scope (in this case its a 150mm scope)...........so somewhere between 150-175x.

Nothing is written in stone though.

Push a scope to its limits and once you are happy with the views...........its working.  

I'm by no means trying to turn you off of the idea of a barlow (as much as it seems like i am). Whatever works for you, is the right way to do things. If you want a barlow, i dont think you need to spend the cash on one which is made to be used in conjuntion with your zoom EP. I'm sure any barlow will do. You can spend £30 or £100 on one.

Cheap doesnt mean bad. Best barlow i ever had was a 2x TAL and it cost about £30. Cant buy them now for love nor money as they were discontinued a few yrs back. You may be lucky and get one second hand.

[Pondus]

I`ve got the hyperion zoom + 2.25 barlow and its mostly used with my Orion XT8i.

I am a novice with little experience compared to most of the members, but I have never experienced degraded / poorer views with the barlow within the area

they overlap eachother.  (112x- 150x).

Without the barlow I wouldn`t have had the magnificent views of Mars last spring, the few, but precious  moments observing Jupiter under excellent seeing (>200x).

For most of my lunar views  I use >150x.

I must admit that I prefer 150x for most of my Jupiter observations no matter how good the seeing is  ( less 'nudging', and still plenty detail revealed).

But I will most probably buy more eyepieces anyways.......(Arent we meant to in this hobby?)

I dont regret buying the barlow for a sec.

Rune

[YKSE]

According to Baader it changes it from an 8-24 to a 3.5 to 10, whether you need this range depends on your scope and what you're observing.

Dave

I'm with Dave, it depends what you're observing.

For your f5 scope, 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 7mm are certainly usable for Moon, planetary and double star work, 3.5mm will be usable for very good seeing condition.

The dedicated baader barlow replaces all these short focal eyepieces where tight spacing requires to manage seeing changes.

For a f10 scope, the barlow is most likely not needed with Baader zoom.

[jetstream]

I use a barlow all the time and if your seeing can support the extra mag it gives it will be beneficial to you. A barlow also lets eyepieces operate with an incoming light cone that can be much friendlier to them, reducing or eliminating some visual defects.

If I had the MKIII zoom, I would use it's dedicated barlow for sure. My Baader VIP actually improves some of my EP's, including but not limited to the 16mm Nagler T5.

[Qualia]

Barlows can be a very useful tool in certain situations. Indeed, many types of eyepieces have a version of them built in.

As Gerry mentions, with eyepieces that suffer from astigmatism in a fast scope, a Barlow can improve the image. If I've understood the idea correctly, a 2x Barlow will transform an f5 light cone into an f10 light cone, and in consequence, the image quality is often much improved. Small refractors will also benefit from Barlows to achieve higher powers when necessary as will Newtonians which can use a laser collimator and Barlow to collimate the scope to a higher degree of accuracy. They're also useful  when using eyepieces like Plossls or Orthos which typically have quite short eye relief under 9mm or so. On some nights when you don't fancy tracking a planet with a 5mm Ortho, for example, a Barlow allows you to use more comforting Orthos or Plossls over 10mm whilst achieving the equivalent of under 10mm eyepieces.

I like to sketch at the eyepiece and sometimes use a TeleVue x2 Barlow on Jupiter and Saturn. To be honest, when it comes to sketching planets, I've never noticed a deterioration in the image; more often atmospheric conditions are playing a much more significant role. There is the danger that a Barlow can help transform a large eyepiece into an even heavier and bigger eyepiece, so it might upset balancing issues. I've never had a problem but it's probably worth taking it into account. Needless to say, for what could potentially be a very useful tool in one's astro kit, I think it's worth spending just that little extra and purchasing for oneself a decent Barlow.

[theghettostylus]

The only time I ever use a Barlow Is for planetary imaging, mine sucks super bad with any EP but then again I modded my scope to only allow DSLR attachment so can't even use EP's or a Barlow aha

[Steve55]

This Thread has moved on since i was last on. Thanks for all the unput very interesting reading peoples different views on this. Only been looking at the planets the Moon and M45 upto this point.  Have a think on what  you have all said and  go from there. Thanks again all.

[dweller25]

The best price/performance barlow I found was the 2x Celestron Ultima SV - you cannot buy then used anymore but they do come up for sale used occasionally.