Best Telescope Barlow Lenses
The Orion Shorty 2x Barlow Lens doubles the magnifying power of any 1.25 inch eyepiece, essentially dividing the eyepiece's focal length by a factor of 2. Not only does the Orion Shorty 2x Barlow's power-boosting ability mean you can enjoy two different viewing magnifications with each 1.25 inch telescope eyepiece in your collection, the Shorty Barlow can also make observing at high powers more comfortable. Double the power of any 1.25" telescope eyepiece with the Orion Shorty Barlow Lens.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"However, this is a great quality lens for an amateur like me."
"If you have a new telescope and you are looking to increase your collection of lenses, I recommend getting the Shorty Barlow Lens."
"May need an eye filter/protector on a full moon night."
"I can see the moon much clearer, sharp view of Saturn's ring and Jupiter bigger and brighter."
"I just got the Orion Skyquest XT8, and it surprised me how tiny planets look through the eyepiece."
"Works great."
"Item is as described, works well in my telescope."
The barrel of the Celestron X-Cel LX 3X Barlow is threaded to accept 1.25" filters, allowing you to change eyepieces without requiring you to remove and re-attach the filter from each eyepiece barrel. Quality X-Cel LX 3x Barlow triples the magnification of any 1.25" eyepiece, perfect for owners of fast, short focal length telescopes.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Added this and Jupiter almost dime dized and can actually track speed."
"This is a great 3x Barlow lens."
"It's well constructed, heavy, fits really well which reduces the shakiness and the optics are beautiful."
"Solidly built."
"Great item, solid construction and excellent performance."
"This is a very high quality Barlow for the price."
"Very solid construction and clear glass, no artifacts."
"Well made, heavy and does extend the length of the eyepiece significantly, so make sure your mount is sturdy."
The Barlow lens also could provide more magnification without reducing the exit hole on the eyepiece;it keeps a comfortable observation with wide view. When the Barlow lens and eyepiece using together;if the magnification is higher than the maximum effective magnification of the telescope itself;the Barlow lens. observation effect appears nearly zero or blurred. Specification: Diameter:1.25"/31.7mm. Magnification factor:2x. Lens material:pure optical glass lens. Lens coating:multilayer HD broadband green film. Sleeve material:metal. Thread interface:M42x0.75. Length:2.9”/7.5cm. Weight:3.14oz/89g. The apochromatic barlow lens provide a high power magnification allow you look more closely and more detailed at the moon's surface and other planet.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The view is slightly dimmer and a little harder to focus with the higher powered eyepieces."
"Works beautifully without interfering!"
"very good and satisfied customer service, I definitely recommend."
"Really is a 5x Barlow of good quality."
"Excellent addition to my assortment of lenses and attachments."
"EDIT: Seller sent me a new unit and the issues I experienced have gone away, just be sure to check closely before using."
"I was very pleased by the quality of the optic."
"Received the SVBONY 5X Eyepiece 3 days ago, and quicker than I expected ."
Best Telescope Filters
This inexpensive accessory threads directly into a 1.25 inch eyepiece barrel and blocks 87 percent of the light gathered by the telescope, making for more comfortable lunar views exhibiting higher contrast. Once installed on a 1.25 inch telescope eyepiece, the Orion 13 percent Transmission Moon Filter will bring out considerably more lunar surface details thanks to the boosted contrast. Telescope eyepiece filter transmits only 13 percent of the incoming light, boosting contrast and ability to discern detail on the Moon.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This is an essential filter to comfortably view the moon through a 10mm eyepiece."
"I got two so I could load up a couple of eyepieces for quick changes without having to screw from one and load into the next."
"This made the moon far more bearable to view."
"Even in my light polluted area, looking at the crescent moon in my 8" dobs is almost painful on the eyes."
"Allows you to view the full moon."
"We're new to astronomy, but I can assure you that this is a needed accessory if you plan on viewing the moon, especially at full phase."
Best Telescope Dew Caps
The Orion Scope Cloak Telescope Cover is an affordable and easy to use telescope cover that protects your equipment from dust, dirt, dew, and sunlight. Keep your telescope set-up and ready for viewing in your garage, shed, or home observatory without worrying about dust and dirt contamination. The highly reflective exterior surface rejects solar radiation, keeping your telescope cool when left in sunlight and reduces cool-down time (the amount of time required for your telescope to reach thermal equilibrium after nightfall). Keep your telescope assembled and ready for action in your shed, garage, or home observatory with a ScopeCloak to prevent dust and dirt buildup.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I am getting used to getting it over the telescope because it is quite large, large enough for a large scope."
"It's nice to be able to leave OTA, arm and tripod set up for an extended period outside."
"I love it."
"That Cloak cover was a very nice, but it was a little too big for my telescope."
"A little bit expensive for what it is, otherwise a great product."
"Comes in handy, especially in the southwest!"
"I am very happy with this cloak cover, excellent quality, covering perfectly my Orion 10" Newtonian astrograph, allowing me, to leave my telescope setup for a couple nights, saving me a lot of work during consecutive imaging sessions."
Best Telescope Diagonals
The larger 2” barrel allows you to see a bigger percentage of the telescope’s light cone, which works wonders for capturing faint deep sky objects with low surface brightness. The mirror’s surface is covered with the same high performance XLT coatings used on Celestron’s best telescopes, and the result is a sharp, bright image that will satisfy the most discriminating amateur astronomer. Housing is precision machined to achieve and hold good optical alignment.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"At first I thought some of the parts were plastic but careful inspection showed it is all metal - though some of the metal is so highly polished and perfectly black coated it could be mistaken for plastic. The drawer ease compound sold in hardware stores works and even white candle wax is OK. Just rub it on telescope's threads and wipe off any excess with a tissue before threading the parts together."
"This two inch diagonal is a significant upgrade to the stock 1.25 inch diagonal that came with my CPC 800. I completely recommend upgrading your stock diagonal to something like this, even if you plan on only using 1.25-inch diagonals. No, just a nicely made telescope diagonal (I'd prefer the diagonal to anything Gucci, anyway)."
"However it turned out to be fine, the item seems to be well made out of metal; also compares to my cheap kit diagonal mirror it is a big improvement."
"The 4-star rating is because it would be really nice to have a version that utilizes the full rear cell for the 11 and 14 inch SCTs to make sure as much light as possible comes through. I have a custom made adapter that I used when I imaged with an OAG and opening up that full rear cell helped. They claim it is interferometrically tested, which I completely believe knowing people who work at Celestron, but it would be nice if they stated what their flatness standard is - many competitors seem to be 1/10th or better."
Best Telescope Finder Scopes
The small ring outlines the Moon-sized area seen in the telescope. To point your telescope, just look through the Telrad and move the telescope until the rings are centered on the object. The view seen through the window of the Telrad is continuous with the sky around it, not magnified or upside down.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Reduce the required 'on' travel, give it a pwm brightness control and a standard finder scope bracket option (awkward but doable) at a minimum."
"There are great tutorials on youtube as well as Telrad sky maps that you can download to get you started with this tool if you are a first timer!"
"If you have a refracting telescope/a dob, then you need this, and if you don't have it or some viewfinder similar to it then you are missing out."
"Easy on and off once the base is installed with double sided tape."
"I don't even use my finder scope anymore."
"It takes two AA batteries so when I forget to turn off the illumination and run the batteries down, it does not require a special battery to replace it."
"I had planned to use it simply as a finder for goto telescope initial alignments but I discovered that it mounts in the perfect place to get a perfect feel for where the telescope is actually pointed in the sky after going to an object."
"Good as new."
Best Telescope Eyepieces
Five superior-grade 1.25-inch Plössl eyepieces: Four-element design with a 52-degree AFOV, superb color, resolution, edge sharpness, and clarity. Since all the eyepieces necessary to study the planets and moon in detail are provided, these filters will greatly enhance your enjoyment of the solar system. Six colored eyepiece (planetary) filters.A tight fit is better, so remove the least amount of foam possible before testing the fit.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I have a Celestron refractor and reflector, and they came with OK eyepieces, but with all the choices I have now, 5 different zooms and a 2X (so more like 10 choices) plus the 2X works with my existing eyepieces - The possibilities are endless."
"I have had some of the cuffs around the eye pieces wear down after a year of use, but they really are not important to me, because I use it in complete darkness."
"I like the variety of accessories in this kit, even though only a few are used regularly."
"First of all folks, please know that a "lens" is the glass on the business-end of a refractor telescope, or the optic on your CAMERA. Secondly, any "set" of eyepieces is generally going to be 90 percent useless. That's because most of the higher powered eyepieces in the set will only get used once or twice -- until you finally realize that high powers are only useful on a telescope if you're in a VERY DARK LOCATION, with almost perfect sky conditions (an extremely rare combination!). And if you shop smart, you'll find a high-quality 32mm Plossl and a 2X Barlow -- Televue for example, are hands-down the best production optics available! [NOTE]: These are not Celestron's "Feature" eyepieces -- they are their "accessory" eyepieces, and like Meade's accessory EP's they are only of average quality, and are usually way overpriced, like most Meade/Celestron accessories. My advice is to save for a Televue 32mm or 25mm Plossl, ($110 to $135 online) and 2X Barlow, ($115) and buy a Moon filter online from a reputable dealer (Orion offers an excellent Moon filter [#05662] for about $15, which I've been using since 1997)."
"At the time it seemed OK, since I hadn't bought a telescope since the 1980s, and the 1.25" eyepieces seemed massive compared to the small Japanese eyepieces of the past. The high mag eyepieces, the 6mm and 8mm, are of the lowest quality, and I found significant aberrations in the glass, enough so that images of planets "jump about" as you move your eye around the eyepiece."
"However the image quality is very poor in comparison to what I already have so I opted not to keep this kit."
Best Telescope Motor Drives
If the set screw is not tightened, the motor could slip and not drive the telescope properly. Enter your model number to make sure this fits.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Make sure you remove the corresponding (RA) knob on the telescope, or you will break the flexible aluminum motor mount coupler. Note that the only way to adjust right ascension once the motor is connected is to loosen the r.a. lock nut and then turn the scope manually. This requires a bit of trial and error, watching say one of Jupiter's moons staying at the same distance from the edge of your viewing disk. Of course in my case it happened right when I was trying to take some long exposures of the Andromeda galaxy ... EDIT 4: Mine has been running for a year now without any issues whatsoever."
"It works, but keep in mind that it will be only for visual or short exposures maybe 30 second max."
"Perfect motor drive for keeping your scope on track of an object you are viewing."
"tracks well really helps for those long exposure shot."
"It uses a simple voltage controlled oscillator to drive the motor and if you take care balancing the telescope to avoid heavy load on gears this stuff will last forever."
"I tested it two times last year and it does an amazing job on tracking Stars."
"Got this along with a replacement."
"worked when i set it up, didn't work when i actually tried to use it."
Best Telescope Photo Adapters
Optics compatibility Compliable with Binocular, monocular, telescope, microscope, spotting scope, night vision and most optical device. Fit eyepiece diameter 28mm-47mm. There is also big type for eyepiece outer diameter from 32mm to 62mm(1.26"-2.44") which is compatiable with bigger spooting scopes, binoculars, small 2inch telescope eyepieces, etc (Search its ASIN: B01D5W0WES).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This product is awesome!!"
"Mounting the device is simple enough, though for smaller eyepieces I found the mount loose – at no fault to the adaptor. You not only have to align your phone with the eyepiece, you must also adjust the pitch, roll, and yaw until you have a centered image. Distance from the eyepiece also matters and depending on the optics, you may find better results having the adaptor’s clamp flush with the edge of the eyepiece, leaving a gap between the phone’s camera and the eyepiece, or a closer mount may work better. Once everything is adjusted, don’t be surprised if the image is not as bright or as large as what you would see using just your eyes – typically you’ll see the circular image taking up a small fraction of the screen."
"And I got a feature I hadn't even noticed in the description: it has a 1/4 - 20 threaded hole, so I can mount my phone on a tripod via this adapter when not using it on a 'scope. It make look strange at the rifle range, leaning over my scope and saying, "Cheese! Unless your tripod is solid concrete, your phone will weigh down the back of the scope and make it point up more. Remember that if you change the view to something nearer or farther, you'll need to refocus the scope. UPDATE 11/9/16: The two samples here are the same photo: a full-frame version to show what my cell phone produced, but reduced to only 1.6 MP for quick uploading and viewing, and a cropped version of just the eagle, left at full resolution. The eagle was nervous about my being there beside the road, and if I took too long perfecting the shot, I might have been left with a photo of perfectly sharp, but empty branches."
"It feels like brass knuckles it is so sturdily built, especially compared to my last plastic Arcturus Labs adaptor which fit only iPhone 5 and which cracked with steady usage over the course of a year."
"Works just as described."
"It works great and is easy to pull out of my pack, slide onto the scope and attach the phone."
Best Telescope Guiders & Wedges
The Orion StarShoot AutoGuider's sensor is a high-resolution, 1/2" format 1.3-megapixel CMOS monochrome chip, with 5.2 micro x 5.2 micro pixels for highly accurate guiding. With the StarShoot AutoGuider, precision autoguiding for deep-sky astrophotography is now easier and more economical than ever. StarShoot AutoGuider keeps track of a selected guide star and communicates constantly with connected equatorial telescope mount to correct any tracking errors throughout long exposure astrophotography sessions. Included software offers automatic calibration and autoguiding with a single mouse click. StarShoot AutoGuider keeps track of a selected guide star and communicates constantly with connected equatorial telescope mount to correct any tracking errors throughout long exposure astrophotography sessions.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"A simple, nice guide camera to give your favorite mount an eye on the sky."
"In PHD you may need to alter the advanced settings (brain icon) to help with settling the RA and DEC. Use the graph to monitor and alter settings until the guiding smooth's out."
"This little no frills camera, when used with the included Stark Labs PHD software, does exactly what it's advertised to do."
"Works good."
"Had to wait 2 weeks before I could try it out, cloudy sky's, but once I did it performed flawlessly."
"a must have autoguider if you want to do long exposure excellent quality astrophotography."
"This works great with my astro setup."
Best Telescope Remote Controls
Product Packaging: Standard Packaging. *Battery life: Approximately two months of continuous shooting with a delay of 5 min, an exposure time of 4 min 56 s, and an interval of 5 min. Compatible with: Canon (Replacement for RS-60E3). EOS Digital Rebel. Digital Rebel (aka 300D). Rebel T1i (aka 500D). Rebel XT (aka 350D). Rebel XTi (aka 400D. Rebel XS (aka 1000D & Kiss F). Rebel XSi (aka 450D & Kiss X2). EOS Kiss/New Kiss/Kiss 7/Kiss III. Rebel 2000, Rebel G, Rebel G II, Rebel T1, Rebel T2, Rebel T2i. ELAN 7, ELAN 7E, ELAN 7N, ELAN II, ELAN IIE, IX LITE. PowerShot G10/G11. Pentax (Replacement for CS-205). K10D/K110D/K100D/K20D/K200D/KM. *ist D/DS/DS2/DL/DL2/K10. MZ-6, MZ-L, ZX-L. Hasselblad: H/H1/H2/H2D/H1D. Contax: 645/Nl/Nx/N/N Digital/LA-50. Samsung: GX-20 GX-10 GX-1L GX-1. *BULB/Long Exposure (LONG). 350D (Digital Rebel XT), 400D (Digital Rebel XTi), 450D (Digital Rebel XSi), 500D, 1000D.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I just wanted to say that this timer works with the Canon Rebel T3i / 600D even though it is not specifically listed."
"My problems are that the shutter release button has wear on it, not as much as one of the photos from the other review shows but enough, the rear battery cover does not snap in or stay on (you have to tape it on), and the front LCD screen is scratched all over. Photos: 1) Shows Remote and Wear on Shutter Release Button. 2) Shows Instruction Manual Excerpt re: Powering Off. 3) Shows Scratches on LCD Screen (Was very difficult to get a photo of, hope it comes out clear enough to see)."
"I've found ones that let you do BULB exposures and wireless remotes. ), how long for each exposure (in BULB mode), how frequent to shoot a frame, and how many pictures to shoot in the sequence."
"This unit does not have a power on and off button so what I just do is take out the batteries once I'm done so it doesn't drain them while not in use. For this price this is the best thing you can buy if you want to set your camera on a tripod and shoot with a remote or just need a remote to do time lapse videos."
"has H,M,S settings so if you want to start in 2 hours, set it to 02:00:00, and long which I read it was exposure time, so if you set your exposures to 2 seconds, then you'd probably want to set your interval at least long +1 second, so set interval to 3 in this example. N is how many exposures, 1-399 and infinity till your battery runs out, and a music symbol to beep everytime it activates the shutter, which is either off or on."