Barlow and a UO 25mm ortho

Hey y'all. I have a UO 25mm ortho that I use in a Meade 395 90mm. I like the views of M42 and star clusters, which is about all I know how to find, but when I use my bottom of the line Meade barlow on planets I get poor images. Saturn is pretty good at 2x but at 3x in front of the diagonal it gets kind of fuzzy. And Jupiter just won't get a good focus. I can see the 2 bands of clouds in the middle and can sometimes make out the polar caps, or what ever you call them. But it's quite blurry too. I would think my scope would hold better than 120x on Jupiter or Saturn. I was thinking of getting a better high power eyepiece or two and do away with the barlow but i was wondering if the UO 25 should hold up a lot better if I had a better quality barlow. I was reading another post where a guy was looking at barlows and I read a lot of recommendations. I was wondering if I should just invest in a barlow such as a TeleVue or similar quality and maybe 2 more eyepieces for a wider range. I just don't want to buy a higher powered eyepiece and be disappointed nor do I want to buy a better barlow and get the same results. My gosh I didn't realize I was rambling this much. Please advise. Thank in advance guy/gals.

Nate

Hi:

A couple of thoughts:

1. Even in a small scope, the quality of the view is dependent upon the seeing. Right now, in the early evening Jupiter is low on the horizon and it is very unlikely that it is sharp.

2. Not sure of the focal length of the 395, I am assuming 900mm. It that is the case, then the nominal magnification with the barlow in front of the diagonal is 108. There is no guaranty as to how close that might be, its pretty rough, ie 3x, not 3.0X

3. Still, one would hope a 90mm F10 achromat would handle more than 108X or so. My Chinese 80mm F11.4 will handle 180X on Saturn and Jupiter when things are right, thats a 10mm Parks Gold Series with a 2X Celestron Shorty Barlow.

4. There will be Chromatic aberration to deal with so don't expect a razor sharp, color free image like one might get from a reflector or APO.

5. I had a Meade 126 Barlow, the lowest quality they would sell separately. I was not impressed with it, at the same time I had both an Ultima and Celestron Shorty, both seemed noticeably better.

6. Check out the eyepieces on Astromart. If you are on a budget, a decent plossl is a good choice. I think a 15mm and a 10mm along with a @X shorty is a good system. Along with a 25mm eyepiece you get 36X, 60X, 72X, 90X, 120X and 180X in a 900mm scope.

jon