We have been offering some version of our digital projector system since the early 2000’s. The specific design, projector model, computer, speakers, and other components we include in that system have of course changed over that time period as technology and options improved.

Starlab uses an Optoma eh505e projector and a Navitar HS30 lens.

We did once offer a 1600-px premium projector, but the projector we included in the package was discontinued by its manufacturer several years ago and is no longer available for purchase by us or independent customers. For reference, the full retail price for this premium StarLab package (when we did offer it) was upward of $75,000.

This projector was called the Ares model, if customers ask about that or find it in old Sales slicks or something. We no longer offer it and customers should be directed to our normal projector instead.

Full-dome films can be shown and look great inside the dome. You will probably see some resolution loss if you’re working with 4k films, but we have a library of fulldome films that we offer for use with the dome and projector.

Any video that you can play on your computer can be played in the dome, as it is run directly from a MacBook pro. While the full-dome videos certainly provide the most immersive experience, you can even show non-fisheye videos in the dome and just utilize a portion of the dome as the screen (so the video would be on one “wall” of the dome, rather than covering the full thing. Some distortion would obviously occur, but clients regularly do this with videos they find on their own and they don’t have issues with the minor distortion.)

Our projectors all come with a laptop computer (default is a MacBook Pro) that connects to the projector, and the system is controlled through the laptop, using the dome as the “second screen.” This allows for familiar UX controls as well as powerful navigation and content/presentation flexibility. We even have customers using the internet to stream fulldome videos from the International Planetarium Society (IPS) or YouTube during their presentations, since they have all the power and options of a computer to control the display. The computer control also allows you to have your presentation notes or content on the laptop screen while showing different content on the dome—this is our the Starry Night software is designed natively, but many presenters do a similar setup if they are using other media content.

Any video format that will play on the included MacBook Pro (.mov, .mp4, etc.) can be played in the dome. If you have (or choose to download) additional software to run a specific video format on the computer, you will be able to project it inside the dome.

• Video is impacted by several factors including and beyond the projector’s resolution, including the original resolution of the video, whether it is streaming or hosted natively on the device, the display format, the program running it, etc.
• Most videos play just fine and look great, especially to children watching the presentations. The pixels in some videos are occasionally noticeable (usually only if you look for them) but in others they are hardly noticeable, again depending on the video’s content, format, resolution, and hosting method. You can expect to see certain quality and resolution loss if you are playing 4K or some UHD videos through the projector.

The Starry Night Small Dome software is available exclusively through StarLab, and usually requires purchase of the projector to acquire. We usually only sell the software as a standalone product to existing Digital StarLab customers seeking to upgrade their software.

This might be an option, but there are some important factors to consider:

• Our boxes and projector stand are custom-made to fit our projector, and most importantly, our projector requires a custom mount attachment (made by hand in-house) in order to attach to and work with our stand.
• We have special agreements with our projector manufacturer to be able to attach that custom mount to the projector without voiding the warranty. A typical customer would immediately void their projector’s warranty if they tried to hand-make or attach an appropriate mount to work with our projector stand.
• The foam inside the carrying case is custom-purchased and custom-cut to be able store, transport, and protect our projector, lens, and components, including accounting for the specific weight requirements of our system. We do not recommend attempting to use it with a homemade system or any projector not acquired from StarLab, and would not guarantee its effectiveness in this use case.

$200 / hour.

5m: 12ft tall x 16.4ft wide

6m: 19.7ft tall x 19.7ft wide

7m: 21ft tall x 23ft wide

StarLab offers free phone support to all customers for the lifetime of the product.

StarLab offers a 3 year limited warranty on manufactured components. Warranty on laptop and projector are from manufacturers (both 3 years) but we will help customers work with those manufacturers on any warranty issues for laptop/projector at no additional charge. The Macbook includes AppleCare.

There is no requirement for yearly maintenance or maintenance checks, we just ask that customers report any issues to us within the 3-year limited warranty period.

Software updates will be included for the life of that version of the software.