Original Barlow Manufacturer?

[Mak the Night]

I often wonder who actually manufactures many of the eyepieces commonly on sale under different brands. I know GSO, Synta and Barsta manufacture many. I recently acquired two shorty apochromatic Barlows. I'm pretty sure the TS Optics 2.5x is GSO.

I wasn't sure about the Omegon, but I have a feeling it is Barsta.

http://www.barsta.com/show_hdr.php?xname=MDA8V11&dname=OPFOR71&xpos=6

The 'plastic' short Barlow on the page in the link above looks suspiciously like the standard Sky-Watcher give-away Barlow. 

The '2x Achromatic Short Barlow Lens with camera adaptor (Metal)' ~ sic ~ looks very much like the Celestron Universal Barlow sold by FLO and included in the AstroMaster Accessory Kit.

http://www.celestron.com/browse-shop/astronomy/visual-accessories/eyepieces/astromaster-accessory-kit

Could these be Barsta as well? Any thoughts?

[John]

TS use GSO quite a bit so you are right on that one. It's the same as the Revelation 2.5x unit that Telescope House sell.

The BST one will be Barsta, same source as the BST Explorer / Starguider eyepieces.

The other two are both made by Synta I suspect. Synta own the Skywatcher and Celestron brands now.

Mind you, designs seem to get around these chinese manufacturers pretty fast - the same design might be coming out of a number of manufacturers ?

It's pretty hard to wade your way through the "who has made what" maze !

 

[Mak the Night]

56 minutes ago, John said:

TS use GSO quite a bit so you are right on that one. It's the same as the Revelation 2.5x unit that Telescope House sell.

The BST one will be Barsta, same source as the BST Explorer / Starguider eyepieces.

The other two are both made by Synta I suspect. Synta own the Skywatcher and Celestron brands now.

Mind you, designs seem to get around these chinese manufacturers pretty fast - the same design might be coming out of a number of manufacturers ?

It's pretty hard to wade your way through the "who has made what" maze !

 

Yeah, the last two are most probably Synta. The Barsta 'plastic' Barlow only appears to have one containment screw anyway,unlike the Sky-Watcher/Synta version. The Revelation 2.5x was cheaper than the TS Optics version when I noticed it at Telescope House. Unfortunately I noticed it too late lol! I have been told that a lot of the other GSO 2.5's sold under other brands are old stock with barrel safety undercuts though. Apparently GSO have recently decided to stop including the undercuts on many of the very newest manufactured EP's. I think I've solved the mystery of that Omegon 2x apo' though. I've seen it under other brand names as well. It could explain why I thought it was good quality when I tried it as Barsta seem to manufacture some good quality eyepieces.