Meade 140 APO Barlow

[part timer]

This is a review of the Meade 140 2x Apo Barlow lens. I purchased this lens from Telescope House in about 2006 (my memory is a bit vague but I think it was during the summer). I had seen one of these at astrofest the year before and had regretted not buying it then as it was going for £40 when the normal retail price was £79. Well eventually Meade introduced the series 5000 range and one of the first items from the series 4000 range to be reduced was the 140 Barlow. I jumped at the chance and purchased it immediately.

My order was processed and posted quite quickly and arrived about a week or so later. My first reaction on opening the packet was disappointment however as the Barlow had been shipped disassembled in 4 pieces. The Barlow body, the barrel, the lens cell and the metal set screw were just stuffed into a plastic bag together with no other packing and as they were in a fairly large box, the parts were free to roll around and damage each other during their long journey. Now, obviously metal and glass in contact is a bad idea and I cannot understand why mead would not spend the extra twenty seconds screwing the bits together before shipping them out. I did complain to TH and was surprised to receive an email the same day apologising and saying that if I later found any problems with the Barlow I could return it and also that they would raise the issue with Meade. To be fair this was very nice as it is an offer that would leave them vulnerable to abuse. In any case the Barlow had somehow survived and so I had no need to take up the offer.

On assembling the pieces it was clear that this is a very high quality well built and nicely coated lens. Every optical and mechanical component looked and felt as if it was worth much more than the mere£40 I had paid.

First light came during some late summer nights and then the Barlow has been used on most observing sessions I have had in the last 4 years. I have used it in my Tal 2M 6” Newtonian, my Skywatcher 90mm Maksutov, My Tasco 114mm Newtonian, a 60mm refractor, a Bresser 70mm Refractor, a Meade ETX 80 and a 12” Dobsonian.

I have used many eyepieces with it including Tal plossls; Meade Plossls, Celestron Plossls (of several ranges), Moonfish and Astronomica ultrawides, TMB and TS Planetary and several ED eyepieces of different brands all of which are similar to the Celestron excel series.

The results have been fantastic. The Barlow gives great views of all objects and does not distort or degrade the image in any way. I use it both planetary and deep sky objects (especially globular clusters) and the light throughput is great. I actually had the feeling it improved some of the cheaper eyepieces! The colour cast is absolutely neutral and as I have mentioned there is no form of image degradation even with the highest powers I have used.

The moon is stunning at x300 as are the planets when conditions allow. If you use a star diagonal you can put the Barlow before it and this will give x3 magnification. I have only used this on my little Mak but worked well and did seem to give the stated 3x power. This Barlow has been probably the only astro purchase over which I have no regrets whatsoever. It is perfect and optically a bit better than my Teleview 2x Barlow (I bought this in moment of madness because it was a good price but sold it due to already having the Meade and the fact that If you put anything made byTV for sale it pretty well sells that day!)

The only reservations at all are firstly, it is quite long and tends to sit quite far out of a star diagonal. This makes no difference whatsoever in Newtonians and is purely aesthetic in other scopes. Secondly, it will not reach focus in the PST but you wouldn’t need very high power in the PST anyway so it’s not really an issue for the visual observer (imagers do all sorts of arcane things with Barlow lenses but they seem to know what they need so I won’t go into it here!)

Anyway I highly recommend this Barlow. I have used a few Meade products over the years and they have all been either awful (ETX 80, an older 8” Dobsonian and some Plossls)or just really poor quality for the price (RCX 400 (Thank god it wasn’t my money wasted), old Lx 200 and the rest of the 4000 Plossls). So this is my first recommended item from Meade, it really is rather good and for £40 it’s an absolute steal!

[russ]

Good review of an excellent barlow. I'll second what you say, this is one of those Meade products that can be whole heartily recommended. A good quality barlow is a worthy addition to the kit bag.

Russ

[John]

Thanks for that very interesting review. I've often wondered about that barlow lens and how it performs - and now I know a lot more about it. If you found it better than a Tele Vue then it must be very good indeed.

[beetlejuice]

I have a 140 as well. I'm surprised yours came in bits. Mine, also bought 2006, arrived fully assembled, in a plastic bolt case, and in a Meade box. That said, I concur that it's an excellent barlow. Definitely a keeper. As you say, it's a bit on the long side, so you have to be careful inserting it into diagonals that don't have a barrel stop to avoid disaster. The removeable lense group is also very handy as I use it when using my WO binoviewers with my WO M90. They won't reach focus with the supplied x1.6 barlow nosepiece. So doubly useful!

[part timer]

Thanks for the responses guys,

If you found it better than a Tele Vue then it must be very good indeed.

I did! The TV was very good but didn't have quite as 'clean' an image. I think it was a bit warmer maybe? The main thing about the Meade is that it doesn't do anything to the image, the view through an excellent eyepiece is still excellent when barlowed. Anyway I got the same price for the TV as I'd paid for it so didn't really loose on that one.

[fmeireso]

Well, i compaired one too against the TV2 barlow.

I still picked the TV2 because it had better contrast IMO. There is some more scattering in the Meade.

But by all means it was tack sharp. I could not see any difference in in sharpness between the two.

[part timer]

To be honest, I have never had any problems at all with light scatter. I couldn't see any in the Televue either.

I think that when you reach a certain level of quality in an eyepiece or Barlow then it just becomes a case of which really small detail you can live with and which bugs you.

I used both Barlow's over a period of a few months whilst I was deciding which one to keep and on the deep sky targets I could always get just that teeny bit more from the Meade. There were always just a fraction fainter stars and so on.

On Lunar and planetary the Meade just gives a more neutral colour rendition (again only slightly!).

Don't think I'm Televue bashing by the way, the eyepiece which is now most used in the Barlow is a 10.5 mm Televue which I will not be parting with!

[fmeireso]

In my yard unfortunately light falls in from several streetlights. It's allways is an issue. At certain angles i certainly need a light shield on my dob because otherwise the fov is spoiled...

Yes, i noticed too that TV has a more 'yellowisch' color redition. My Pentx XW shows a more neutral color too.I have no preference but as you said little differences may let you decide what to choose.

I am still in the market for a 7 mm eyepiece., either an XW or T6. They are both so good i Can't decide if i should pick the one or the other. So i postponed my decision...for now.

Anyhow, have fun with the barlow.