Orion Shorty 2x Barlow Lens, 1.25

Price: $34.35

Brand: Orion

Doubles the power of any telescope eyepiece
This barlow lens is compact - just 3 inches long (about half the length of a standard barlow lens)
2x amplifier lens doublet is multi-coated for excellent light transmission
Housing is internally baffled to eliminate unwanted reflections and increase contrast
One-year limited warranty

Give your scope a power boost! Orion s Shorty barlow lens doubles the power of any eyepiece it s used with. For about the price of a single telescope eyepiece or less, this practical accessory effectively doubles the number of eyepieces at your disposal. It gets its name from its compact size. The Shorty barlow lens is just 3 long end to end - about half the length of a standard barlow lens. It s short 1.25-diameter barrel is just 1.6 long, fitting easily in any 1.25 star diagonal, so it s great to use with refractors and Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes. In fact, it works with any type of telescope. The Shorty s 2x amplifier lens is an achromatic glass doublet that s multi-coated to ensure excellent light transmission. The machined and anodized aluminum housing is internally baffled to eliminate unwanted reflections and increase contrast. Barrel is threaded to accept filters.

Works as promised - Well-crafted, nice lens, works as promised. Helped us pull in Jupiter at resolutions we hadn t captured before, as well as a nebula. Very exciting!

Good for most uses - This will be a good product for most applications, and is very convenient for lighter scopes. Works just fine in my Meade ETX-90. But shows its weakness, as all less expensive eyepieces do, in a very high quality refractor (Stellarvue SV80S). Consider the short Antares 3X Barlow, or the more expensive Orion 2X, if you have a scope with very hiqh quality optics, or might upgrade to it.

Helps, but not as much as I thought - This lens is supposed to double the magnification of any given eyepiece it is used with. I suppose it does, but to me the difference wasn t that obvious. Probably depends a lot on the aperture of your telescope (mine is 114 mm), since magnification can only do so much with limited light. However, the quality of the materials/lens itself seems adequate, and you can t beat the Orion company s customer service.

You get what you pay for. - Performs as expected... mediocre. Not the best choice for a dobsonian, where lens length is typically not an issue.

A must have for any amatuer astronomer! - I picked up this Barlow lens after reading that Barlow lenses were must haves for any telescope kit because they basically double (in theory) the amount of eyepieces you have. For anyone who doesn t know how they work, you simply slide the Barlow lens into your eyepiece slot like a normal eyepiece, and then your normal eyepiece will slide into the Barlow. So in essence, if you have 2 eyepieces, with the Barlow lens you now have 4. The magnification boost that the Shorty gave to my .10mm and .17mm eyepieces was pretty incredible to say the least. I use a Konus 4.5 reflector telescope and with the Barlow boosting my .10mm eyepiece Saturn looked absolutely stunning. You could see the divisions inside the rings, something that was not easily done with the eyepieces alone. Another very convenient thing is that the Shorty can be swapped out just as fast as any normal eyepiece. That being said, I would find the object I was looking for with the wider viewed .17mm eyepiece, then just swap out that one with the .10mm Barlow-loaded eyepiece and the object would be in the center of my FOV within a few seconds. Long story short, if you want some extra magnification power for your eyepieces, look no further. At first I was a bit skeptical that the magnification boost wouldn t be very noticeable, but I was pleasantly surprised at just how well it really worked. For the price, you can t beat it.

Orion Shorty 2x Barlow Lens, 1.25