Homestar Flux (Satin Black) Home Planetarium Star Projector

The quality of the device seemed ok, but the rotation of the disc caused constant noise, that was annoying when trying to sleep. I returned the device and was charged $129 restocking fee? This is unacceptable, no where did I see this mentioned. I would never buy from this company again. The image from the device was ok, it was brighter than my $40 projector but it was not good enough to cost almost 300.

This star projector is quite the bang for your buck! I recently had an attic fire, forcing me to repaint my living room (and everything else soon) so I went dark this time, painted the whole thing ceiling too Dard Hunter Green, very cool looking. The rest of the rooms are still primed with an unbelievably white PVA primer product. The Sega in the dark living room is like being outdoors in a fantastic star viewing location..super realistic, and the shooting stars are very accurate. When I moved it to my bedroom, still painted the awful white primer, well, it seems too bright, like..couldn’t go to sleep bright, believe it or not! I prefer the look of it in the dark living room. I think ppl don’t realize how important the reflectivity of their ceilings influences the way the projector works. You can place the projector quite low to the ground, I have mine behind my couch, tv wall opposite, and the lens still somehow fills the ceiling. I included a picture from just my phone from the bedroom ceiling, I didn’t alter the exposure or anything. It’s actually way brighter than that in person, you know how hard it is to photo dark things at night on your phone! When I see ppl writing “bad” reviews about this complaining they are not bright enough, I don’t know what they’re expecting, their paint must have a low reflectivity, because on a super white ceiling, I think it’s too bright, but that PVA stuff is so white it hurts your eyes. Its like a spray primer for drywall, awful stuff. I can’t wait to get more discs for it..I think this is an amazing product!

First, it does not ship in the timeframe Amazon indicates. It takes 5 business days, according to the company. Second, it's impossible to get focus throughout the field, unless you put the projector in the middle of the room and face it straight up. Not very practical in most rooms. Third, the stars on the disc it comes with are super-sharp, all white, and some are just big white circles. Not very realistic. Also, I bought a second "Miller Engineering" disc and it is smaller, so it hangs in the turn mechanism. And, although the product image for the disc is super bright and colorful, the projection is dim and not as colorful. Fourth, I can't really tell what's so much better about the Flux vs. the "original" or "pro". They look exactly the same, so you might want to save your money and buy the cheaper one (if you're determined to buy one). Fifth, the manual says you can turn the screw knobs on either side of the projector to "fix" it to one angle, but mine does not "fix." Although the knobs do turn, they do not lock the projector into a desired angle. All-in-all, I find this projector to be a huge waste of money. It might be worth (at most) $80, just for the novelty of it, but definitely not the $180 I paid.

Being someone who is fascinated by the stars and grew up watching science fiction alot, I always wanted my own Planetarium and never dreamed one could be mine. I saw this and was heavily skeptical... I am pleasantly in awe of what i now own. This is the BEST home planetarium on the market, the flux is compatable with all other sega Homestar discs. The design is straight out of Star Wars, it is sharp, and matte finish is nice touch. I watched videos comparing the quality of build and the bulbs brightness, the flux is the new gen homestar that outclasses itself. The competitions home planetariums are far inferrior spec wise and with the available products of backwards compatibility, it is only planatarium worth getting. Sega is such an underrated company and has won my heart (with this and their videogame system Genesis Classic that is completely hackable using Project Lunar to add more games, they are on a winning streak a mile wide) Back to the review! The brightness still isnt anything that can show up on a white ceiling during even low lighting, but if you wait until dark it becomes as bright as real stars, if not more and blew my high expectations away. There was alotta fear when I bought in being afraid of negative reviews being right. Reviewers said: The discs were cheap, bad image quality, wont focus etc... This DOES focus on even low ceilings, I use on a textured ceiling and though you have ALOT of focal adjustment to dial it in, once you do, image is very crisp and the rotation is nice and slow giving realistic immersive experience. I believe other reviewers didnt take effort of properly experimenting with focal ring dial. The shooting star is a joke, it looks nice but stays in same location so can spoil the mood so I dont turn it on. That is where my major hit of minus 1 star comes from, clearly false advertising including wording of "random" with it. This criticism is the only accurate thing I've found from negative reviewers. I bought a bunch of discs seperately because system only comes with 2, people may expect the images to have some multi wheels within wheels of rotation and 3d effects, but it is a suspended single photo only, despite that it still manages to provide alot of depth and appears some stars are back further then others when rotating so it isnt disappointing. The included disks though aren't doing the hardware justice and they're identical and black and white (one has stars in North America as seen from naked eye, other has astrology lines drawn over same field and is eyesore) and I highly recommend imvesting in these, as they're so good and amazing in color, I hardly ever even use the others... 1. Jabbah and Associates. Its a colorful nebulae, oranges, greens and blues, looks like a picture from Guardians of the Galaxy in best way possible. 2. Disappearing Continent. A mostly blue and black beauty with translucent stark webbing throughout. Unlike the others this takes up whole field with hardly any regular starfield visable. 3. Immersive Paranal World. A striped celestial formation that is illuminated in a really pretty way. The normal starfield with this dividing it, it's really appealing composition. The box it comes in is flat out amazing, it's great for storing it and looks so presentable I keep my homestar atop it when not in use. The cord is plenty long, the adjustability is above and beyond, you can aim it anywhere, even wall mount it. I put mine in center of room and multi focus on wall and ceiling above my bed with little difficulty. The focusing dial feels a little loose but doesnt automatically fall out of focus in use and offers a extreme amount of zooming in and out to match your ceiling in focus. Loading the discs is a bit intense, the drawer comes out loose, I recomend placing it down on clean surface, acting with intent in good lighting prior to being sleepy and carefully handling discs with these two considerations... A. You dont want to scratch them, they're hd images from NASA suspended in acrylic, i wish it was in glass so I could polish without fear, but for 25 dollars a pop, they make a great value for image quality alone, but they appear like the surface is fragile so handle with care (and put in text side down for best clarity) B. Keep them dust free, because lemme tell you, you see a single damn speck of lint or dust, it shows up starkly as a blacked out spot and rotates with image. When you do clean them, I blow on them first to knock dust off then use a eyeglass cloth gently to do the job. The sleep timers I dont even need but are nice, when i wake up its always automatically off already and has never turned off when I am awake to see. Luckily they come with great cases reminescent of cassette tape cases design (technically more like the Jazz floppies, if you remember those i am impressed!). The included borders are just junk and interfere with coloring as well as they're all light blue so I disrecomend using them, luckily you dont pay for them, so just consider them bonus cases for your real discs should you ever break one. In summation, highly recomended this, I had hopes and expectations with such a pricey investment as a nerd who has Aspergers and needs a routine because I have allota trouble sleeping at night that this would incorporate well into my self soothing and it delivered. I now utilyze every night, I recomend a white noise machine, gentle fan, oil diffuser, gentle mood music (I use Star Trek 1st movie soundtrack on shuffle and low) and a weighted blanket (that is 10% bodyweight) to feel incredible and have amazingly achievable and pleasant sleep. I am including pictures of every angle, and videos of each disc

Initially I was disappointed because of the quality of the picture being projected. It wasn’t as High Def as I thought it would be. Then I purchased a disc made by a third party called Miller Engineering. I think they go by Dark Sky’s now. I attached two pictures to show the difference in picture quality both discs provide after focusing. The planetarium is easy to set up and I like the bed timer function. I use it to listen to audio books or read before bed. The light isn’t bright enough to show up with the tv on. You could still see it but it’s pretty dim. It still shows up with RGB lights but they have to be on a low brightness setting. Overall I’m happy with this product, you just have to get the higher quality discs

I have been a lifelong star gazer and this product is the best! I love the realistic sky view, the ease of use, size of machine, and the milky way as it meant to be seen. It is true that the edges do not come into focus but that is as good as a machine like this can get due to today's technology ( I read and researched this fact) . It not a really problem as the center is so beautiful it does not distract much. I have the northern hemi and southern hemi disc. I highly recommend the SH disc as the milky way is fab and living in the northern part of the world, I never get to view it. The disc with the constellations "drawn" on to it is not super helpful for learning or identifying the stars. I highly recommend, instead, an old book I have used for years called The Stars - a new way to see them by H A Rey. It made constellation viewing easier and more fun!

Not impressed for the high dollar price tag. it worked OK but where I needed to put it in my home it was catching on part of the device. The image on the ceiling was spectacular however, in a square room, it doesn’t make sense. Either part of it was down on the wall leaving part of the ceiling white. Might work better in a dome shaped room. The “following star“ isn’t random. It just goes in the same spot every time so it’s not thrilling after seeing it once I expected much better from Sega. I wouldn’t say it’s horrible. It’s just not worth the money in my opinion. My daughter has one that’s in the shape of an astronaut. It’s not a realistic view of the northern hemisphere. However, in my opinion, it’s much more magical.

I got the Flux for my girlfriend for her birthday and we are both enjoying it quite a bit. This version, as I understand it, is newer and likewise more expensive than earlier versions that are still available. I think you get what you pay for here and that spending extra was worth it. The device looks really cool, sleek design and packaging, and is easy to use. The darker the room, the more spectacular the lights; make sure you adjust the lens by twisting the black dial back and forth and you will be amazed with how crisp and detailed the stars become. You could get it for a kid, but adults (like us) will get a lot of enjoyment from it too. Highly recommend.