Klee Barlow Test

by Phil Chambers

Last night I went to the SJAA public star party at Hogue Park. A fellow that just bought a Klee barlow showed up so we could try it against my Ultima 2x. Not very scientific because the Ultima is a 2x and the Klee is a 2.8.

Using my 2800mm focal length f10 and the PC23C video cam with an 8in panasonic monitor (my usual star party setup), we focused on Jupiter. With the Ultima we could see the 2 main bands with the hint of a couple others (the seeing was unsteady most of the evening). i refocused several times so we could get an idea of the average setting.

The sky was very transparent but the light pollution in the middle of San Jose is terrible and the seeing was mediocre to poor. A Front had passed through and there must have been a jet stream overhead.

Then we put the Klee in. The seeing did not really support the mag. I was, and remain, astonished. Jupiter had much more detail, contrast was better and we could even see the very thin equatorial band on Jupiter as well as festoons on the larger bands (the larger ones only). With the Klee, Jupiter on the monitor was about half the width of the monitor and Jupiter is about 49 arc sec so the entire field of view was about 100 arc sec wide (1min 40sec).

Now, I am not real experienced but have had no reason to doubt the quality of my Ultima 2x. Mike, the owner of the Klee, also has an Ultima and he had seen a similar thing in his 90mm.

This was on the monitor and several experienced folks were watching also and had the same reaction (maybe not as deep as mine, but I use the monitor quite a bit and knew what I should be seeing). I refocused several times to take that error out (could have gotten exceptional focus one time) and it was the same each time.

Later we used "real" eps with the doublers and while the difference was not as dramatic as on the monitor, it was still there. Recognize that these doublers were not the same mag but considering the seeing, I would have expected a loss of contrast with the higher magnification. We compensated one time by using different FL eps but that has its own problems.

I'm sold. Now if UO would just answer the phone on Saturdays.....

Mike also had a newly purchased Konig 16mm from UO that have me the clearest set of in-focus diffraction rings that I have Ever had.