Digitarium® Planetarium Systems
General Information
A planetarium helps students grasp abstract astronomical concepts and can spark enjoyment and interest in science. Digitarium digital planetarium systems stand out in price and performance, putting a full-featured planetarium within reach.
Think of the possibilities of having your own easy to use, full-featured planetarium at your disposal. Avoid the headache and expense of organizing a fieldtrip to an off-site planetarium. You can use your projection system as often as you need to cover your subject matter fully, and you can tailor your lessons to your students.
Digitarium systems offer advanced features to excite and engage your students. Zoom in on and label any object; demonstrate annual motion; display constellations from many cultures ; and much more. The system's vast capabilities make it relevant for audiences of all ages. Project your own content on any subject.
Affordable and flexible, a Digitarium digital planetarium system will revolutionize your astronomy teaching.
Digitarium systems are available in either a portable or fixed configuration.
Distinctive Benefits of Digitarium Systems
A number of features make our Digitarium system stand apart from other digital planetarium systems:
- Best usability. We believe our unique handheld, backlit remote control offers the best usability in the industry. It is easy to learn and use, and icons make it intuitive for any user around the world. With no separate control computer required, educators are liberated from complex software interfaces, aren't tethered to the projector, don't need to block audience sight lines, and need only a fraction of the setup time. Devote your attention to your students rather than your system.
- Lowest training costs. Due to its excellent usability, no special operator training is required other than reading the user manual. Our free lesson plans can get you started teaching right away.
- Fully immersive experience. We believe projecting the full sky and horizon is absolutely critical for effective planetarium teaching. If parts of the sky are missing, not only is it harder for students to orient themselves, but it places limitations on what you can demonstrate easily. The full immersive experience for an audience will be ruined by standard application windows, desktops, projector reconfigurations, and other awkward and jarring transitions. That's what makes our embedded system so magical.
- Reliable. The Digitarium systems do not use laptops which could overheat, and the operating software is stored on a highly reliable solid state flash disk. Our three year limited warranty is three times as long as that of most other systems.
- Upgradable and modular The modular design and shared components between Digitarium systems means they can be upgraded or serviced down the road at lower cost. Most components can be serviced locally in developed countries. The computer control unit can even be serviced by the user (with our instruction) should there be a problem.
- No software headaches. We manage your software for you, so you don't have to worry about it. We fix bugs and add features over time, and all you have to do is connect your system to an Ethernet network and ask it to update itself. Software updates don't require hardware upgrades as one competitor cautions.
- Unique software expertise. We lead development of the simulation software that we use, Nightshade. Unlike many competitors, this means we are intimately familiar with the planetarium software in our systems. We can easily fix bugs, add features, and make these changes available to our users.
- Most cost effective full-sky digital planetarium system. We designed from the start for higher volume, lower overhead production and distribution, and lower pricing than our competitors in order to put our tools within reach of most educational institutions. Even at affordable prices, we believe our systems match or outperforms many more expensive models on the most important criteria for practical astronomy education. We invite you to compare competing products in person and see this value for yourself. Paper comparisons just are not the same as seeing in person.
- The market leader. You don't have to take our word that we have the best portable planetarium for astronomy educators. Our Digitarium systems are the best selling portable digital planetarium systems in the world. With the first model introduced in late 2003, we now have users across six continents.