Review on 🔭 SVBONY 1.25 Inch Telescope Barlow Lens - Enhanced 5X Optical Zoom for Stellar Telescope Astronomy by Peter Sullivan

I read several reviews on this product that questioned the actual magnifying power of this Barlow lens but decided it wasn't a lot of money and only for that case it really is. Quality 5x lens for $$ I had nothing to lose. Well I can back up some claims with other reviews: 1. It can't be a 5x increase. 5x would mean more than doubling a 2x lens and this lens doesn't come close to doubling the magnification of the 2x lens I already had prior to purchasing this lens. It's more powerful than my 2x, but I believe it's actually a mislabeled 3x lens, as others have pointed out.2. The quality of this lens is not good enough to see the planets. At 2x Barlow magnification on my 400mm telescope with a 10mm eyepiece, I can see Saturn's rings. Replacing the 2x with this 5x results in a blurry ellipse where Saturn should be and maybe only 50% larger than 2x (hence my guess that this is actually a 3x lens). The reason I give 1/5 stars for quality AND value is because it is advertised as a 5x zoom lens. It lacks much of the quality of a 5x lens and the value it retains as a lens is diminished by being inferior to lesser performing lenses in the same price range. Barlow lenses always require some degree of image sharpness, but not to the degree that this lens does.