PowerMate and sharpness

For those of you who are sticklers for image sharpness and clarity, do any of the TV PowerMates meet your standards (I'm primarily interested in the 2.5x)?

I have a Celestron Ultima Barlow. For me, it is good for only two things: looking at the moon and manual guiding. Anything beyond the moon and the barlow destroys all image sharpness/clarity...even in my ED and Flourite refractors.

I have never had the chance to try a PowerMate, which lack of ownership in a large astronomy club might be a sign that they are not worth the mulah.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

-Phil

If the Ultima doesn't work for you/your scope, I doubt the powermate will either. There is no reason a decent barlow per se should degrade the image. Have you compared an equivalent focal length eyepiece to the barlow/eyepiece combo in your scope or checked collimation? I routinely prefer a barlow combo to the equivalent eyepiece alone for highpower planetary scrutiny due to the increased comfort factor. I always used a barlow in my past ALPO research. Ron

I have an Ultrascopic Barlow (Orion's version of the Ultima - 3 element, long version) and am guessing you must have a lemon. This is the first barlow I have used that I didn't think the same thing you said about image degradation. I still think mine was a great purchase. From what I understand today though, I might go with a Powermate, since it supposedly doesn't mess with the eye relief as much.

Charlie