What an almost-product. TL;DR: even considering how affordable this is, it's really handicapped by bad choices. In exactly the right circumstances, you can get a really cool moon background. Itโs okay for kids or folks who just want some cool spacey color when going to sleep, but weak as a planetarium and limited for ambiance in other contexts. The next step up is the Sega homestar matataki at 3x the cost with poor brightness and only 2 poorly reviewed discs, and then the sega flux at 7x the costโฆthere are no good options I know of. First the slides. The single special flagship slide of the moon with a galaxy off to the side and some nice details is in black and white and has super-fine detail. It's lovely, and looks impressive in a very dark room. The other 12 slides, in addition to being much lower resolution and blurry no matter how you try to focus them, are rainbow puke over saturated like a bad video game or 70s lounge, and generally too closely cropped. Among them there isn't a single slide that manages to stay out of it's own way and JUST BE STARS or a single well-presented deep-sky object. The box proudly proclaims the slides "are the consumable component" and recommends you cycle between them to extend the life of the product. Which makes it even more lame that it is difficult and/or expensive to buy any more slides, and you can never be sure of compatibility because the product and its clones are all hand-wavey with specifics. The "vendor" FlyEagle has a website and store... but it's a "demo store"! I'm ordering some from AliEx for nine bucks each, and I guess we'll see if they work. In my search for more "special" high-resolution slides often called "5k" or "HD glass" - all black and white due to the special process I presume - I found three slides for purchase that were well done: the moon by itself, the milky way and just anonymous stars. These were the only ones without constellation lines, oversaturation, collages of miscellaneous space junk, or poor framing. I'm hoping they are good, compatible, and last as the only compelling slides in the entire library that I have seen so far. The production quality, aesthetic, and design choices of the rest are so poor. Now to the device. The projector is so dim you need a pitch black room to use the recommended 6ft - 10ft. Any light - reading, tv, monitor, subdued office/gaming lighting - and it is pretty washed out at 3ft. You have a choice of 4, 2, or 1 hours. There is no "on" apparently because the slides wear out so fast. It looks like a single 1 watt led, probably with insufficient IR/UV filtering to save a few cents contributing to the limited lifespan of the slides. It forgets the rotation setting, so every time you turn it on you have to turn off the rotation, again. I will probably crack the case and disable it, as I'd rather be able to turn it on with automation and not get seasick or have it mess up the framing. The power jack is incompatible with the stand, so when you're projecting on a wall, it sticks straight up, as the other direction the cord collides with the base. Why not put it on the side where the slide drawer is? or counter sink the jack? or make the stand a little taller? The focus control is just the sphere around the lens - sloped and lacking any lever or ribbing to grab, so you can't pinch or grab ANYTHING. It's like trying to gently twist a firmly held egg, so it takes your other hand to push on the device, and of course the whole unit is wiggling a ton, making the task frustrating and slow. There are so many ways to solve this well, and they chose none of them.
