This was a gift for my three year old grandson who has just become fascinated with space, the stars, and planets. It was perfect for him and he just loves it. Best used in a dark room, it casts the planets on the wall, ceiling, floor, even your hand, The discs are easy for a three year old to put in and take out, as well as manually rotate them to change planets. If you flip the project over, it casts beautiful blue stars all over. It can be used as a night light or just to look at the planets and name them and see their features. The planets do not cast extremely large but they are big enough to differentiate clearly, one planet from the next. We simply love it!
When the box arrived my son was already jumping all over with excitement. We ordered this product on May14th and it arrived on May20th (delayed 1 day). I wasn't too sure about the quality because I've gotten some "cheap" items from Discovery in the past. So far after the kids played with it for a couple hours, it's held up nicely. The lights are bright but the pictures on the slide disc are a bit blurry. I didn't expect HD quality but this is a bit off putting. The projector has a star feature that shines tiny blue dots when turned on and honestly, that's my favorite part. You'll need 3 AA batteries and a phillip's head screw driver. Other than that, there's no assembly. I have some pretty high hopes for tonight when we try it out. For now, the closet fort I built fits the bill and they haven't been fighting so far lol
I originally purchased it for my 4-yr boy. And then I ended up loving it for myself. :) In a completely dark room it works like magic! On the 'stars' mode, the whole room is filled with dreamy slowly rotating bluish stars. And on the projector mode, you can project images of the sun, solar eclipse, the earth, the moon, and some other members of our solar family on your wall. The image of the moon on a white wall in a dark room looks like a real moon! Completely metamorphoses the room into a brightly lit full-moon night. Literally so. And the further you move the projector away from the wall, the larger the images get.
I will treasure this item for as many years as possible.
I purchased this for my 5-year-old grandson for Christmas. Upon arrival and before wrapping, I opened it to be sure everything worked. I personally had a great time using it. The end that projects the stars was pretty cool. The only drawback was in order to see the stars slowly moving, it must be fairly close to the ceiling or wall. On the projection end that you inserted the disks into worked very well, For little ones, they may need help aligning the disk properly into the frame and adjusting the focus. The focus rim was a little hard to turn and a small kiddo would need some help. Other than that, it was a great gift! Shipped fast and was in perfect order.
Its awesome. I wish I could buy extra cartridges with pictures, because my kids play with them a lot, and they get scratches, also it would be more interesting.
The pictures are with, and without light from a hallway to my basement