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Buying a Barlow Lense


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Hello you wonderful people,sorry i have not been on here much lately,busy life and terrible cold/flu, i am considering purchasing a Barlow lense, and i would very much appreciate your thoughts and input, as a total newbie, i dont know very much, i know i want to get a 1,25 x2 barlow, but is it ok to buy a generic or should i buy a brand name and spend a little more, does it matter what i buy.

I have seen them ranging from £6.00 upwards i was thinking of getting the celestron for about £25.

Anyway thank you very much for taking the time to read and comment, best regards Dave.

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In general you are always better off investing a little extra £$€ in buying good quality. In the best case you know that you can count on good quality on your side (if the view is ugly then you can know that it is almost certainly not the fault of that specific piece of equipment). If it does not work for you, you can always sell a good piece of equipment for a good fraction of new price. That will not be possible with a cheap thing. I understand you are in a budget so perhaps you want to monitor what's going on in the second hand market. Perhaps you can add a post in the "wanted" forum for a good quality, reasonably priced barlow. Good luck.

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don't buy anything new for £6, it'll be junk. £25 might be a little cheap as well. It'll work, but maybe not well. Others may have them and be in a position to compare against more expensive ones. nothing worse than looking through a bad piece of glass.

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Thank you  Star Forming & Brown Dwarf, very much appreciate your thoughts and thank you so much for replying, yeah i was never going to buy the £6.00 just i noticed  on eBay they start from that price, also does a short Barlow make any difference  ?.

Many thanks Dave

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There is currently an Antares Astro barlow for sale in the second hand section on this site for £15. They aren't the most high spec brand but still decent enough to give one a try at that price in my opinion. 

i only used a barlow for a short time before realising I didn't like spending so long faffing about with it and preferred to just use different focal length eyepieces instead. Whatever you do, don't spend big money on one until you've tried one for a while anf you know you like them. 

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If the £6 eBay barlow is the same as the one sold by FLO as "astro essentials" then it is in fact very good optically. 

For a specific recommendation I would consider the Explore Scientific focal extender or Televue Powermate as these alter the light path in a different manner. 

I also prefer to use a barlow to produce my high power options rather than to use one to produce a load of intermediate steps between existing eyepieces. 

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6 hours ago, Jimtheslim said:

There is currently an Antares Astro barlow for sale in the second hand section on this site for £15. They aren't the most high spec brand but still decent enough to give one a try at that price in my opinion. 

i only used a barlow for a short time before realising I didn't like spending so long faffing about with it and preferred to just use different focal length eyepieces instead. Whatever you do, don't spend big money on one until you've tried one for a while anf you know you like them. 

 

6 hours ago, Ricochet said:

If the £6 eBay barlow is the same as the one sold by FLO as "astro essentials" then it is in fact very good optically. 

For a specific recommendation I would consider the Explore Scientific focal extender or Televue Powermate as these alter the light path in a different manner. 

I also prefer to use a barlow to produce my high power options rather than to use one to produce a load of intermediate steps between existing eyepieces. 

thanks guys very much appreciated, best wishes dave.

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8 hours ago, Jimtheslim said:

There is currently an Antares Astro barlow for sale in the second hand section on this site for £15. They aren't the most high spec brand but still decent enough to give one a try at that price in my opinion. 

i only used a barlow for a short time before realising I didn't like spending so long faffing about with it and preferred to just use different focal length eyepieces instead. Whatever you do, don't spend big money on one until you've tried one for a while anf you know you like them. 

I have enquired about the Antares 2x Barlow , many thanks Jimtheslim

best regards

Dave

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