Debbie, the only Celestron Barlow I have any experience with is the 1.25", 2X Omni. It appears to do very well for visual use, though the entrance aperture is smaller than I would have liked to see, so there might be some edge-of-field light loss on very wide-angle or low-power eyepieces. But I haven't had it long so the jury is still out. I also use an Orion Tri-Mag 3X Barlow, VERY old University Optics 2X 2" Barlow, and the original iteration of the 2.8X Klee Barlow, which was designed for very fast systems only. All of them work well visually. I can't help you on an imaging recommendation unfortunately. I doubt you'd go wrong with TeleVue but, yep, it's gonna make a deeper dent in the pocketbook. Funny that you mention fishing lures. From my experience, the one that works best is always the last one picked! I guess that's sort of like always finding something lost in the last place you look for it... On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 8:41 AM, Debbie <astrodeb@beyondbb.com> wrote:
Chuck,
Does Celestron make pretty good barlows? I may be in the market for one this coming fall. Thinking of getting a 3X 1 1/4 inch apo barlow for imaging. TeleVue's 3X runs $125 so I was looking for one a bit cheaper.
Hope you enjoy your new eyepieces. Kind of like trying out new fishing lures, right?