Dark Skys DS-FX Home Planetarium Star Projector

The DS-FX is a small, portable star projector / planetarium. It is similar in size and function to the Sega Homestar, but is much nicer and less expensive. The build of the projector is solid, and unlike my Homestar it can focus sharply. The projected image covers my entire ceiling and is quite bright, much brighter than the Homestar. The built-in battery lasts for several hours, and charging is easy via the USB-C port. The disc rotation is slow and stately, and almost completely silent. The control buttons are easy to find in the dark and feel solid. The projector includes a discount code for buying discs. The only downsides to the projector are: It uses its own format of discs, and so cannot use any of the wide selection of Homestar-format discs, which is a shame. And the available discs are--so far--only grayscale, no color at all. Hopefully Dark Skys will figure out how to make color discs so that the projector can display some of the amazing Hubble and JWST planetary and nebula images. Even with these negatives, I highly recommend the projector itself. Just it alone and the included disc are excellent, and at a good price. I like that the star discs are each built into their own trays and come with protective sleeves. However, the trays are bulky and surprisingly have absolutely no identification as to what is on the disc. There is an identifying sticker on the sleeve, but since the sleeve is separate from the disc, it's easy to mix them up. For now, with only a few fairly unique discs out, that's not a big problem, but it will be when more astronomical discs are produced. The included Northern Hemisphere disc does not include a sleeve. In terms of the discs, they are a bit hit-or-miss. The included disc is spectacular. It is a view of the Milky Way and zillions of other stars. However, as other reviewers have noted, most of the stars just seem to be grains or noise, and are distracting, not realistic in terms of representing a dark star-filled night. I'd personally prefer that most of them be removed or muted. Also, there is subtle banding or rippling in my disc's image. I've seen similar--and much worse--banding in Homestar discs, so this is a minor nit. I also bought the FX-20 Stormy Nights disc and FX-21 Moon disc directly from Dark Skys. The Stormy Nights disc is more of an artistic presentation, and subjectively it is nice, but just nice. I don't regret buying it, but will probably not use it often. The Moon disc is probably my favorite. It has a nice balance of the Moon plus a wide starfield, and there are not "too many stars" on this disc. My only nit is that I expected the Moon to be much larger. I would happily buy a second disc that is mostly or entirely filled by the Moon in high detail. Currently, there are two other discs available from Dark Skys, the FX-ADM Twinkling Stars module and the FX-22 Constellations disc, neither of which I personally am interested in. Overall, in terms of discs, I would recommend the Moon disc, and possibly recommend the Stormy Nights disc as an alternative to astronomical discs. I am looking forward to more discs from Dark Skys, hopefully color ones!

I bought this for my son (14) for Christmas. He wanted a more realistic projector to replace/augment the galaxy projector he has had for a few years. This has been great so far. Battery life is about a week if we use the 1-hr timer each night. Picture quality is really good - he was blown away at the realism. There isn't much light cast below/sideways from the projector, which is great. I just ordered a couple more discs (moon & stormy night) at the Dark-Skys site so he has some variety. A few notes: 1) The charging cable seems like an ordinary USB-C, but I've been unable to get other USB-C chargers to work. The cable that comes with the projector is very short. Anyway, if the charging LED doesn't light when you plug it in to recharge, it's not charging. Learned that the hard way. 2) It's nice to be able to focus the projector image based on ceiling height. However, it has such a big throw (size on the ceiling) that it's impossible to get the whole projected image in focus. Only if you could have it in the center of the room would you have a chance at getting the image entirely in focus across the whole ceiling. But it still looks great - he just told me what section he looks at most often, and I made sure that was in focus. Overall, an amazing projector that my son loves. I'd recommend it!

Likes; very sharp detail, medium amount of stars, not too bright, rotation, slow. Dislikes; no shooting stars, appearance becomes a bit monotonous. Absolutely no changes in scenery as there are only four other discs available, none with color. The one disc that you would want to have is generally out of stock. This projector just came available in July of 2023 so maybe the company will upgrade this planetarium soon. We will be returning this unit due to the reasons stated above. Lack of additional discs and color.

Excellent. Very peaceful. High resolution. Well built. Looking forward to trying out some other discs

This WAS great. So many stars, and the Milky Way looks so realistic. But I quickly realized two things. 1) it’s really loud and 2) half of the projection will be blurry because how poor the focus is. I contacted support via email and got a quick response. But upon sending a second message requesting clarification and sending the requested info I was ghosted by support. Never heard anything back. Something tells me these issues are common, hence the never hearing back from them.

I have been looking for a star projector that would give a realistic view of the night sky and this is it. I couldn’t afford Miller Engineering’s DS1 so this was the next best choice. The projected view is outstanding! It only comes with the Northern Hemisphere disc but they have more discs available on their website. The star disc comes permanently mounted in the star disc tray which is a nice feature so you are not fumbling around with nickel size star discs like the others. It would be nice if they added the shooting star like the DS1 has, maybe they will in the future. The only minor complaint I have is the focus is very sensitive and you have to take the time to make sure it is in focus. Overall, I couldn’t be happier with my purchase.

I wanted a realistic star projector and decided on this one over the much more expensive DS-1. I don't have the DS-1 to compare, but I'm very happy with this one. It's plenty bright in a dark room, and the included disk looks really nice. When focused properly it looks very good. Note that because of how the projector works, if you place this in the middle of a room you will be able to get the full image in-focus, but if you put it on the side of the room and tilt it, only part of the image will be perfectly in focus (although if you get the middle in focus, the edges look good-enough in my opinion). I assume this will be an issue with any non-laser projector but it seemed worth mentioning.

I always wonder what shills give products like these 5 star reviews when anyone in their right mind would never rate this 5 stars, even as a total amateur. The high star review got me to buy it but alas, I was let down. First off- it's pretty expensive considering it's a small LED light behind a proprietary slide with a DC motor. The build quality is decent on the outside and it feels fairly sturdy. The USB cord it comes with is laughably worthless (3'?)- just throw it away. You WILL need to get a longer cable. Just buy one at the same time if you don't have one- At LEAST 6'. (usb-c to usb-c). If you don't place the projector in the center of the room you will get aspherical distortion which will blur the stars significantly (significantly!). This is a practical impossibility to have it in the middle of the room for most people unless you choose to hang the projector from the ceiling with a mount (a lot of work considering). So caveat emptor. The distortion completly ruins the effect of the "stars" The discs are $22 each-that's right, $22 each. It comes with ONE disc that's black and white. Every other disc you want is going to cost you big time. Even if you were rich, there is a very limited amount of discs available for this unit- a TOTAL of 4! You CAN buy the "bundle" with all discs for $170 on their website. Still, really REALLY steep considering. I will be returning.