Deja Vu All Over Again - ciciglow 2X 1.25inch Barlow Lens.

[Nightspore]

I had a feeling I was getting deja vu with this I figured SvBony didn't actually make anything themselves. If only I could have bent space-time with some hot wired souped-up laptops and seen that these Barlows would now be sold as generics for less than a fiver.

 

Blurb:

 

ciciglow 2X 1.25inch Barlow Lens with Storage Case M28.6 * 0.6 Thread 2X Eyepiece Fully Multi Coated Glass Lens for Astronomy Lovers

 

(Lovers of cheap Barlows?) These things are now on Amazon, and others, for as little as £3.50. Less than a third of what I originally paid for the SvBony. Chinese marketing is sneaky bent space-time clever. It's natural for people to develop brand loyalty, even if the concept of branding is essentially now an illusion.

 

Generic element on right (above).

 

Ostensibly the ciciglow (who?) looks like the SvBony equivalent. I'm guessing all of these Barlows are made by the same Chinese company, or even companies, as the housings and glass parts may indeed be manufactured by different groups. I acquired a ciciglow Barlow element for the ridiculous price of £5.53. I've had space-time bent pizzas delivered for more than that lol. Plus you can only eat a space-time bent Margherita with extra basil once, and this Barlow can be looked through and kept forever. Or at least until space-time ends (or gets bent).

 

 

As I can now have my Barlow/cake and eat it, I decided to compare the generic Barlow element with the SvBony in a series of daylight tests with my Altair 60mm EDF and a variety of eyepieces.

 

 

60EDF (above), Takahashi 6mm Abbe orthoscopic plus Barlow element (below).

 

 

Threaded directly into the 19mm Panoptic both magnified by around 1.6x, giving me a smidgen over 30x with a tiny bit of vignetting. There was no vignetting on the Takahashi 6mm orthoscopic, basically now a 3.75mm EP. Again, if you look closely at these elements they actually are subtly coated.

 

 

With both elements the M28.6 * 0.6 thread was pretty universal and I've never had any trouble threading a filter or other into it. In fact, I didn't even need to bend space-time. If only all threads were as compatible! At the end of the day, or at least the end of bent space-time, these Barlow elements are identical. The predominant difference is the absurdly low price. My only gripe is that my ciciglow came without a plastic storage case. luckily I bent space-time and saw that coming and I have a spare case.