Yep! Sure looks like it, and they"re comparably priced.

 

This is a Celestron T-adapter sans element. It was originally out of an old AstroMaster Kit and I'm fairly sure Synta have sourced them from various OEM's. Most Celestron T-adapters now have aluminium drawtubes with undercuts. As Barlows they're pretty decent, bearing in mind that they are achro's.

 

Lot of talking at NASA, launch could be good to go soon.



https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/#public



Fire up the rocket ... head for outer space ...



Good luck SpaceX.

 

Done deal - it went.

Cool! Love that vertical landing of the 1st. stage!

Dave

 

Yes, the return stage is like something out of a sci fi movie.

 

Very nice. It looks pristine, or 'in good nick' as we say this side of the pond. I'm guessing it's old stock someone's discovered somewhere. I know they were very highly rated. I'm pretty sure there's no compression ring, and no drawtube undercut as well! It's virtually perfect.

I'm green with envy lol.

We're supposed to be getting a mini heatwave soon, it has gone milder, although a tad cloudy at the moment.

 

Been closing in on 50°F. here (10°C.) today. The ice-jam on the roof here slid off and made a very loud 'CRASH!' below, which came down where the downstairs neighbors' back-door is. It would have killed them if they'd stuck their heads out just then.....Ah well. Better luck next time!

I've never looked through the Ultima Barlows, but I hear they were/are awesome. You're a lucky guy, Ray! Congratulations on your find!

Mak - I see you caught the launch et al in all it's highlighted moments on your Vivaldi browser. I haven't played with it to speak of - yet. The newer Firefox is still actually working alright. Whatever was getting me disconnected 1/2 the time seems to be fixed in the newest version. But it's bound to explode in my face on it's next 'update.'

Back to my news and writing on what's going on with the new "president." Now he's declared that ALL news is fake, unless you get it directly from himself alone. Watching the nightly newscast has been elevated to the equivalent of treason.

Good Night & Good Luck,

Dave

 

It looks good and I'm guessing it will perform better than it looks lol. I wonder how much it really weighs, I just can't see it being heavier than the TV 2x which isn't even a shorty. It's great when you pick up something that rare, especially as a bargain. I felt the same about the 15mm Antares MC, although I paid more for that than I did for a 15mm TV Plossl. Spring can't come fast enough ... we seriously need to test all this gear!

 

I thought I caught the launch well, I was watching on my desktop, laptops and tablet just to make sure I didn't miss the ignition sequence/lift off lol. The last Firefox version finally stopped running flash on My5 (a UK streaming site) so I don't really use it on Windows now.



Vivaldi's new screen capture function rivals Maxthon's.



And here it is nearly two years ago, more or less an alpha with no extensions capability, running on my old notebook on Ubuntu Trusty Tahr.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser)

 

The Antares was sold under other names, including Celestron, they don't make them anymore AFAIK. It's not really a Plossl as it has five elements. It's a possibility that your new Barlow was also marketed under other names. 5oz/142g sounds heavy for a shorty. The TV 2x is lighter than that and it's built like a tank! lol

 

According to Amazon it's 5oz, I'm guessing someone hasn't translated this from the metric properly. Virtually all Japanese gear is in metric measurements.

 

That's about £156! I think the Ultima had such a reputation that you could probably ask for that. I'm not totally sold on the fact that Japanese made products are always that superior, but a lot of their stuff is very well made. It being Japanese in itself would be a huge selling point.

Plus, the Ultima Barlows are a rarity more or less now, which pushes up the value. Bearing in mind that a brand new quality apochromatic Barlow (short or conventional) can be anywhere between around £80-150 nowadays. I suppose 150 quid would be a fair price to pay for an Ultima in good nick.

And the fact that the Ultima preceded the compression ring/undercut fashion would be a huge selling point for many people. Almost every quality apo' Barlow these days has a compression ring. At least GSO are removing undercuts altogether or using TeleVue-style flared lower lip undercuts on some products. I fear the stupid-arse compression ring will be with us for some time though.

So yeah, the price sounds possible.

 

I've pulled the trigger on a 9mm Kasai ortho' from 365Astronomy.



They look like volcano tops on the 365 site, but Baader BGO's on Kasai's site.



Be interesting to see what arrives!

http://www.sciencecenter.net/hutech/kasai/index.htm

http://www.365astronomy.com/9mm-Japanese-Abbe-Orthoscopic-Eyepiece.html

 

If those are original volcano top "Circle T's" by Tani (deceased) I will be ordering some myself, I look forward to your further posts on these Mak.

 

I emailed them a couple of days ago about the Kasai ortho's but they didn't get back to me. I think they're understaffed at the moment as they usually get back to me fairly quickly.

The way I see it, I'll probably get a volcano top (possibly Circle T), a BGO type ortho' or a bog standard Astro Hutech. Either would be good.