To Barlow or not to Barlow? Skywatcher Heritage-130p Flextube

[vvsloan]

Hi there everyone,

So I have just purchased today a Skywatcher Heritage-130p Flextube from FLO (Would have loved an 8'' Dob which I had previously bought for my mother as a retirement present, with much help from you guys through the whole novice buying scope process, and who then rather selfishly moved to deepest darkest Normandy, thus depriving me even a glance through the thing, which had kinda become to feel more like my baby! But funds and space were too much of an issue) and it comes with 10mm and 25 mm EP's, brand unstated, and I read in one of the reviews on the page that a barlow lens was a pretty essential bit of kit to get the most from this scope. I was just wondering what you guy's opinion on this was; whether its better to buy a barlow lens, or just save up and invest in more, better quality EP's? I'm pretty much wiped out financially with all the little extra's needed for a 1st scope- collimator, suitable surface for the dinky thing, couple of books, you know how it is, but if a barlow would make the difference this particular reviewer seems to think it does, I'd find that last £30 somewhere...)

Many thanks in advance for your thoughts on this,

Victoria.

[John]

The 25mm and 10mm eyepieces are enough to get you going on deep sky objects - they give magnifications of 26x and 65x respectively. If you are on a really tight budget then a 2x barlow lens will effectively double your options to include 52x and 130x. The last being useful for the Moon and planets.

The Astroboot website currently has a couple of decent 2x barlows at £20 and £15:

http://www.astroboot.co.uk/AstroBoot

Probably a decent way to use that much money to get more flexibility from the scope. In time better quality eyepieces will improve things further but you can get started right away - the more you use the scope, the more you get used to it and the more you will get out of any further purchases

NB: I've not actually used a Heritage 130 so it would be useful to get confirmation from another owner / user of the scope that using a barlow is practical with it. Barlows move the focus position of eyepieces a little inwards and it has been known for some scopes to struggle to find that focuser movement.

[Alfian]

Hi Victoria, I hav a Revelation 2.5x Barlow which is good but I cannot use it in the Heritag 130 or my Tal1 both of which have fairly short travel focusers. It works fine on other scopes. Its possible that a 2x  "shorty" might be OK, perhaps someone will comment on that.

[happy-kat]

I can't use my 1.6x short barlow with this telescope even with dropping the trusses.

You will see the separate ring on Saturn with the supplied 10x eyepiece but not the division.

I use just a collimation cap to colimate mine.

[Ju Piter]

i have a normal barlow skywatcher delux(2 lens) and it worked fine in my 130p with all the eyepieces i have bst 15mm,vixen npl 30mm,omni plossl 9mm and the 10mm,25mm that came with the scope

[LukeSkywatcher]

I have used a couple of different barlows with this scope with no problems at all. I agree with John though that what you have is enough to start seeing Dso. I have seen some amazing things with this scope.......blackeye galaxy,ring nebula but to name a couple. Better eyepieces do improve the views. Most of my eps cost between £30-40 and they work great. My favourite are Vixen NPL. The eyerelief on them though isnt much and most people struggle with them but i personally dont find that issue a problem.

[cjdawson]

Hi Victoria.

As others have already said, getting a 2x barlow will allow you to double the magnification of your current eyepieces.  The basic rule of thumb is that under perfect conditions you should be able to get about 50x mag per inch (it's a very rough guide) so at 5 inchs, you could get 250x mag at under perfect conditions.  However, reality bites and I found that about 1/2 this is more likely.  So, that's more like 125x under normal conditions (with light pollution etc).   Again this is a very rough guide, that doesn't mean that as you get more experienced and train your eye that you'll be able to go above 125x, but I doubt you'll be able to pass 250 ever.

So as your scope comes with 26x (25mm) and 65x(10mm), the barlow will give you 52x and 130x respectively.  So will likely give you a great range of powers to choose from.  After that any single eyepiece purchase will effectly be worth two eyepieces in your collation.  That's why barlows are useful to have in your collection.

[starforce]

Would a 3x Barlow be a better purchase than a 2x, and would a 3x fit and work correctly on a Skywatcher 150p Dobsonian, or is the 2x the only option?

[John]

Would a 3x Barlow be a better purchase than a 2x, and would a 3x fit and work correctly on a Skywatcher 150p Dobsonian, or is the 2x the only option?

It depends what eyepiece it is being used with, but I think a 3x barlow would deliver too much magnification generally for that scope. Any 1.25" or 2" accessory should fit into your scope (assuming you have the correct adapter in place) but not all of them will produce useful results !

[Charic]

Ju Piter mentions the Deluxe Barlow. I have a sky-Watcher deluxe 2xBarlow which works fine, yet this Barlow has the option to remove the lens cell  from the tube, and if your eyepiece allows, you can screw the cell straight onto the eyepiece itself. This  gives a lower  Barlow factor of 1.6x  or maybe 1.5x, but its another option when using  this particular Barlow. I find just the cell alone is more suitable for my needs. Maybe I'll  buy another one just for the cell alone!

[Charic]

...............wow! side tracked and out of time to edit, here's the full scipt........If a MOD would like to delete #10 and this line of text I`d be gratefull..........

Ju Piter mentions the Deluxe Barlow. I have a sky-Watcher deluxe 2x Barlow which works fine, yet this Barlow has the option to remove the lens cell alone  from the tube, and if your eyepiece allows, you can screw the cell straight onto the eyepiece itself. This  gives a lower  Barlow factor of 1.6x  or maybe 1.5x, but its another option when using  this particular Barlow. I find just the cell alone is more suitable for my needs. Maybe I'll  buy another one just for the cell! But using just a cell should not create any issues in the Heritages focuser.

As for higher magnifications, your telescope is  easily capable of 130x and a little more if pushed, but the conditions need to be good. A 5mm eyepiece alone would do the job.

I`m not sure though that  a 5mm eyepiece alone would be a good investment on a small apertured scope, because that's all the eyepiece can be, and Barlowing a 5mm will  be wasted?.

Now if you bought a more comfortable eyepiece of say 10 -12 mm you could use that focal range and still Barlow to the higher power  at 5mm if and when the conditions allowed.

When you mention better eyepieces, try and visualise that to mean ' more comfortable eyepieces'  not necessarily expensive! We could all select the same 10mm eyepiece today, and will  see different results, because were using different telescopes, different focal lengths and apertures. You need to find what's comfortable for your own eyes and telescope, be that the  distance from your eye to the eyepiece glass, and /or the field of view you achieve, you don't want to be looking through a pipe? 

I have  a 5" telescope and for me, I had to change to something bigger soonest, mainly due to the  time wasted adjusting the GEM (German Equatorial Mount) for different targets, but  looking  through that scope and comparing to my latter scope, I have no regrets........ Its a pity, no, a shame you did not look through the 8" your Mother is  so proudly  gloating over!........you will see what I mean. 

I would continue to  add that the Heritage is probably a better scope than my 127EQ Celestron that's tucked away in a shed, Even kept as an ornament, the Heritage looks tidy. Keep at it until you feel the need to upgrade, and on your next trip over to Normandy, have a quick peek 

[cjdawson]

There is a similar trick that you can do with a 2x barlow.  When observing, I use a star diagonal with either my SCT or my refractor.  So the setup normally goes like this....

Scope -> diagonal -> eyepiece.

When I use a barlow, I normally, just unplug the eyepiece then plug in the barlow.

Scope -> diagonal -> barlow -> eyepiece

this gives me the 2x as expected.

the trick is to plug things in a different order

Scope -> barlow -> diagonal -> eyepiece

This will mean just like the information above you get a different maginification.  Depending on the size of your diagonal, you might get 3-5x the rated magnification.

[SteadyEddie]

Hope this is the right place to ask, I managed to dump the original 26x (25mm) and 65x(10mm) eyepieces s that came with the telescope I got for my wife at Christmas (don't ask ) but have since replace with a 32mm & 6mm. I have no idea about focal lenght etc that I rea about so the question I have is, would the 6mm EP work with a 2x Barlow ?

Thanks

Eddie

[John]

Hi Eddie,

What scope does your wife have ?

 

[SteadyEddie]

Sorry John, just realised there are a few mentioned in the thread, it's a Heritage 130P

[Ricochet]

If the barlow and eyepiece are good then you will probably find that the combination is usable on the moon. You might also sometimes be able to use it on some planets. For example, Saturn can usually take a higher magnification than Jupiter. A separate 4 or 5mm will be useful more of the time. 

You have a big gap between 32 and 6mm and even if you add a 2x barlow to emulate a 16mm I think you are missing a DSO eyepiece around the 10-12.5mm range. 

[SteadyEddie]

Many thanks, Ricochet. Apologies for the basic question but a DSO a brand or type of eyepiece?

[tooth_dr]

6 hours ago, SteadyEddie said:

Many thanks, Ricochet. Apologies for the basic question but a DSO a brand or type of eyepiece?

DSO = deep sky object.

[happy-kat]

My most used eyepiece in that telescope is a 16mm.

If you don't already have one then look to get a collimator cap. You should at least have one of those as you'll need it occasionally to check the mirrors are aligned.

[SteadyEddie]

Thanks all for the advise, it realy is apprecated. I'll get on the hunt for a lens or two over the weekend... 

As a new comer any specific recommendations welcomed

Thanks

[happy-kat]

If you are glass wears then you'll want to look for decent eye relief say 16-20mm.

What sort of budget are you thinking for the eyepiece?

[SteadyEddie]

I'll be honest, I'm so new to this I've no idea what's budget, what's mid range and what' s top end price.

So if I say we'd like to be able to see saturns ring and as much detail of jupiter as possible whitout spending more than £30 per eye piece would I get laughted at?

Both the 32 & 6mm lenses I have are Plossl and seem to work well. Glasses wearers but for reading and haven't used them when using the telescope to date

[lenscap]

I have been very pleased with my unbranded Plossl's . Excellent value. Readily available for £15 or less S/H  from Astroboot or elsewhere.

I wouldn't go shorter than 6mm with a Plossl though (not much eye relief).