Orion 2x Ultrascopic Barlow

4.0 Orion 2X Ultrascopic Barlow

Cheap way to double eyepiece collection, good optical quality.

Long length, large setscrew interferes with some eyepieces and is easy to lose.

This is a very useful accessory to have. The Ultrascopic barlow does an excellent job of doubling the number of available focal lengths in my eyepiece collection. It's also good for increasing the eye relief on some short eye-relief eyepieces.

However, it is a bit long, which makes attaching some larger eyepieces a bit precarious and the setscrew used to attach the eyepieces is easy to lose. I also found the setscrew slightly too large for some eyepieces which have a dual 1.25"/2" skirt with a slot for the barlow's setscrew to slide up. When using my 14mm Meade UWA 4000 eyepiece, I typically borrow the smaller setscrew from my Orion Shorty barlow since the one on the Ultrascopic is a bit large for the slot.

I have no problem with recommending this barlow to others. It works as stated and does a great job. However, I will likely switch to the 2.5X TeleVue Powermate soon as most of my eyepieces have long eye reliefs and I do not wish to extend the distance further when using a barlow.