Astrial Discs

Imagine seeing the sky from a different angle. The dream comes true with the additional discs for the Sega Toys Homestar Flux, Original & Classic. The colourful discs let you travel to many different places in the universe without leaving your home. Prepare your next astronomical trip to Down-Under, look at the earth or moon during day or night or even approach the Andromeda Galaxy. All this and much more is finally possible with our broad selection of additional discs. To round off your adventure, the scenic discs provide the corresponding horizons.

Sky Disc Aurora Borealis

Sky Disc Aurora Borealis & Scenic Disc Taiga

Aurora Borealis & Taiga

Aurora borealis are natural light displays in the Earth's sky, usually visible around the around the Arctic region. Auroras occur when the Earth's magnetosphere is disturbed by the solar wind. Both, the solar winds and the magnetospheric plasma contain charged particles, electrons and protons. When these collide, the protons and electrons for Hydrogen atoms. This fusion releases energy which is visible in the form of a tiny flash. Depending on the amount of energy becoming available, the flash has a different colour. Most of the time, the colour is green-blue, but also red or yellow can be observed. All of these flashed together appear as moving or "dancing" lights.

Auras can occur at different altitudes and different mechanisms can lead to the emission of light. While science still has not fully understand the whole phenomenon, most people just enjoy watching them. Some of them travel for hours to just to hope to be able to see them.

This discs comes with a scenic disc showing a boreal forest. The horizon is the Arctic with the trees of a taiga, the experience becomes even more realistic as it can be seen in nature.

22,00 USD

Sky Disc Space Exploration

Space Exploration

The history of space exploration dates back to 1610 when Galileo Galilei used a telescope to make the discovery of Jupiter's moons, lunar craters and the phases of Venus. While there are still no commercial space flights available, numerous rockets launched all sort of equipment to further explore the space.

Skylab launched on 14 May 1973, travelled 1 400 000 000 km and reentered the Earth's atmosphere on 11 July 1979 after 34 981 orbits. Mir launched on 20 February 1986, orbited the Earth 86 331 times over 15 years and has reentred the Earth's atmosphere on 23 March 2001. The International Space Station has been launched in 1998 and has since been expanded rapidly. It orbits the Earth 15.54 times per day with its orbital period of 92.49 minutes.

The unmanned Hubble Space Telescope launched on 24 April 1990 and has since been orbiting the Earth 15.09 times per day. The Juno spacecraft launched on 5 August 2011, entered Jupiter's orbit on 5 July 2016 and has since been orbiting Jupiter.

The centre of four galaxy creates the blue haze, while green features are from carbon-rich dust molecules and yellow-red patches are the thermal glow.

18,00 USD

Sky Disc Jabbah and Associates

Sky Disc Jabbah and Associates & Scenic Disc Timber Wolf

Jabbah and Associates & Timber Wolf

The bright star surrounded by a red coloured dust cloud is called Jabbah. The name is Arabix and means "the forehead of the scorpion." While Jabbah looks like a single star, it is in reality a system of stars. It is not clear how many, but there could be up to seven stars. Each of those stars is many times brighter, larger, hotter and more massive as the Sun. Jabbah is 440 light-years away from the Earth. This is 4 163 000 000 000 000 000 metres or in other words, the distance the light travels in 440 years. Jabbah's immense luminosity lights up a giant cloud of dust and gas near it. The could closest to Jabbah is called IC 4592, the one furthest away is designated IC 4601.

The image has been taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. It shows the sky around the constellation of Scorpius. The hottest objects in the image are stars, their light emissions have been captured at infrared wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns. The light of warm dust has been captured at wavelengths of 12 and 22 microns. In order to make it visible, the colours have been transformed into the visible spectrum.

This discs comes with a scenic disc showing a lonely wolf below a tree. Astronomers must feel about as lonely as the wolf when exploring the infinity of the sky.

22,00 USD

Sky Disc Disappearing Continent

Sky Disc Disappearing Continent & Scenic Disc Galactic Telescopes

Disappearing Continent & Galactic Telescopes

In visible light, the area resembles the continent of North America. This is also why it is known as the North America nebula. This image is taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. This telescope detects infrared light at wavelengths of 3.6, 4.5, 5.8 and 8.0 microns. As infrared light can penetrate dust, the dark clouds become invisible. Visible light on the other side, cannot pass through dust and the clouds are easily visible as dark areas.

Still, there are many things to see in this view. Clusters of young stars, about one million years old, can be seen all over the view. Also, there are slightly older stars, about three to five million years, dispersed over the image. The darkest areas in the image are clusters of the youngest stars in the complex. These stars are less than one million years old.

In this view, the colours had to be changed in order to make the image visible as the human eye cannot see infrared waves.

This discs comes with a scenic disc showing telescopes. This makes everybody feel even more like a real astronomer.

22,00 USD

Sky Disc A view of the Zodiac

A view of the Zodiac

ALMA stand for Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array and is the most powerful telescope for observing the cool Universe, molecular gas and dust. However, ALMA is an array of 66 antennas in the shape of large metallic satellite dishes and does resemble a typical telescope. ALMA is composed of a main array of fifty antennas measuring 12 metres in diameter. This array is complemented by an additional four 12-metre and twelve 7-metre antennas arranged in a more compact array. The antennas can be moved around and are positioned on top of different concrete foundation pads. With maximum distances varying between 120 metres and 16 kilometres, ALMA has a powerful variable zoom.

ALMA operates at wavelengths of 0.32 to 3.6 mm, about one thousand times longer than visible light. Radiation in these wavelengths open a window into the cold Universe. However, the Earth's atmosphere contains water vapour which absorb signals from space. This is why ALMA is built at the 5000-m high and dry Chajnantor plateau in the Atacama Desert, Antofagasta Region, Chile.

18,00 USD

Sky Disc View above La Silla

Sky Disc View above La Silla & Scenic Disc Atacama Large Millimetre Array

View above La Silla & Atacama Large Millimetre Array

The La Silla Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Chile. It is in the Atacama Desert, Coquimbo Region, Chile at an altitude of 2400 metres. It is dry, flat and remote from any light and dust sources, but is still easily accessible. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) built and operates three telescopes at this site. There are a series of additional telescopes that are partly maintained by the ESO.

The 1.54-metre Danish National Telescope has been in use at La Silla since 1979. It has been completely overhauled in 1993 when it has been equipped with the Danish Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera instrument.

The red colour in this image is produced by a phenomena called airglow. This faint emission of light the night sky to never be completely dark, even without starlight and diffused sunlight. Various processes in the upper atmosphere, cause the airglow's red and green light.

This discs comes with a scenic disc showing the antennas of the nearby Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array ALMA. This makes everybody feel even more like a real scientist living and working in the Chilean desert.

22,00 USD

Sky Disc Immersive Paranal World

Sky Disc Immersive Paranal World & Scenic Disc Palms Beach

Immersive Paranal World & Palms Beach

The Paranal Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Chile. It is in the Atacama Desert, Cerro Paranal, Chile at an altitude of 2635 metres. It is dry, flat and remote from any light and dust sources, but is still easily accessible. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) built and operates a series of telescopes at this site.

The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is the largest telescope on Paranal. It is composed of four separate 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes and an additional four 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes. The telescopes can be combined to form the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). The combined interferometer is 25 times more accurate than the individual instruments.

Apart from the VLT, Paranal also hosts three survey telescopes. In order to accommodate all the staff, there is also an ESO hotel, the Residencia. The hotel served as a backdrop for the 2008 James Bond film “Quantum of Solace”. The Milky Way is visible very clearly. The green-blue air airglow adds some colour to the dark night-sky.

This discs comes with a scenic disc showing palm trees near a beach. Those who prefer romantic palm trees over deserted mountains will feel the ultimate excitement of the sky.

22,00 USD

Sky Disc Annular Solar Eclipse

Annular Solar Eclipse

Total solar eclipses occur somewhere on Earth on average every 18 months. But on a given place on Earth, they only occur once every 360 to 410 years. And even then, with a speed of the Moon's shadow of over 1700 km/h, they only last up to 7 minutes and 30 seconds.

Solar eclipses occur when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth. Only at new moon, the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction as seen from the Earth, an alignment referred to as syzygy. The Moon's orbit is tilted at over 5 degrees to the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Due to this, the Moon's umbra usually misses the Earth.

Hundreds of million years ago, the Moon was closer to the Earth. Because of its larger apparent size, no annular solar eclipses were possible. However the orbit of the Moon around the Earth becomes approximately 3.8 cm more distant every year. Annular solar eclipses become more frequent, and millions of years in the future, there will be no more total eclipses.

Even though eclipses are a natural phenomenon, its infrequence often led people to attribute them to supernatural causes. However even for people, who are perfectly aware of its astronomical explanation, solar eclipses are something special. Eclipse chasers travel hours to remote locations to observe solar eclipses.

18,00 USD

Sky Disc Total Solar Eclipse

Total Solar Eclipse

Total solar eclipses occur somewhere on Earth on average every 18 months. But on a given place on Earth, they only occur once every 360 to 410 years. And even then, with a speed of the Moon's shadow of over 1700 km/h, they only last up to 7 minutes and 30 seconds.

Solar eclipses occur when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth. Only at new moon, the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction as seen from the Earth, an alignment referred to as syzygy. The Moon's orbit is tilted at over 5 degrees to the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Due to this, the Moon's umbra usually misses the Earth.

Even when the Moon's orbit cross Earth's ecliptic plane, the Moon is not always close enough to the Earth. Because of its elliptical path, the Moon might be too far to block the Sun entirely, leading only to partial or annular eclipse.

Even though eclipses are a natural phenomenon, its infrequence often led people to attribute them to supernatural causes. However even for people, who are perfectly aware of its astronomical explanation, solar eclipses are something special. Eclipse chasers travel hours to remote locations to observe solar eclipses.

18,00 USD

Sky Disc Solar System

Solar System

With the advances of science and research, many things are very accurately determined nowadays. Not so the number of planets which has last been readjusted in 2006.

Under the geocentric model, the Ancient Greek considered the Sun and Moon to be a planet, while the Earth was the centre of the universe. In the 1600's, the lager moon of Jupiter and Saturn were mistakenly thought to be independent planets. And in the 1800's, some asteroids and dwarf planets were considered to be planets. It was not until 1930 when Pluto has been discovered and become the ninth planet. And it was not until 2006 when it has been reclassified as a dwarf planet.

Good old Pluto is present as is Saturn's ring, both not exactly planets but still visible. Also, while not a planet, the Sun certainly deserves a place as the centre of the solar system.

18,00 USD

Sky Disc Hot Air Balloon Festival

Sky Disc Hot Air Balloon Festival & Scenic Disc Famous Mountains

Hot Air Balloon Festival & Famous Mountains

The oldest hot air balloon festival is the Vredefeesten in the Belgian city of Sint-Niklaas. It has been held since 1948 on the first weekend of September. Today, there are over one hundred such festivals all over the world. Most of them, over sixty, take place in the United States alone. Another fifty take place regularly in countries such as Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and United Kingdom. While they do not take place in every country, there certainly is one not too far to visit for everybody in real life. You might not see the milky way and balloons, but we promise you a great view too.

This discs comes with a scenic disc showing some of the world's most famous mountains. They make the scenery of the hot air balloon festival even more romantic. And global too as there is the Ayer's Rock, Mt. Fuji, the Guilin mountains, the three Peaks of Lavaredo, Niesen, the Matterhorn, Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, Kirkjufell and Laguna de los Tres.

22,00 USD

Sky Disc Grand Fireworks

Sky Disc Grand Fireworks & Scenic Disc Sailing Boats

Grand Fireworks & Sailing Boats

The first firework festival was held in during the Kyōhō famine in 1732. The fireworks were part of a festival for the dead. Because of the economic crisis in the country due to the famine, the festival was also a celebration of life and entertainment for the poverty-stricken masses. The tradition became established in 1810. Over the years rivalries between the guilds of pyrotechnicians emerged. The Tamaya and the Kagiya guild quickly became the two major rivals, both trying to gain popularity and support of the onlookers. The tradition dropped off in the 1920s and eventually ceased entirely during World War II. Only in 1978, the tradition was reinstated and continues under the name of Sumidagawa Fireworks Festival until today.

Nowadays, there are many firework festivals in around the world. And almost every city celebrates some event with fireworks. National holidays, New Year or major events are among the most common reasons for the beautiful entertainment.

This discs comes with a scenic disc showing ships and boats. Those who always wanted to watch fireworks on the water will certainly enjoy it.

22,00 USD

Sky Disc Flowers and Butterflies

Flowers and Butterflies

While flowers, butterflies and stars are all older than humans, floriculture has its roots in Babylonian times. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World. From there on, the Roman emperor Tiberius built the first greenhouse around 30 AD. From there, floriculture developed into a passion which is not limited to kings and emperors.

Butterflies on the other side have been bred since about 5000 BC in China. However, this has only been done for silkworms for the production of raw silk. Only starting from 1977, butterflies have been bred for exhibition. The Guernsey butterfly exhibit used greenhouses of the bankrupt tomato industry. Due to its success, butterfly exhibits quickly became popular and attracted more and more visitors every year.

18,00 USD

Sky Disc Night Jellyfish

Night Jellyfish

The subphylum Medusozoa includes certain gelatinous members. Their life begins as free-floating larva. Once, attached to a site, the larva grows as polyp. The polyp then strobilates, the body is segmented into multiple medusae. These medusae are known as jellyfish. They are free-swimming animals with umbrella-shaped bells and trailing tentacles. They move by expanding and contracting their bodies, making them the most energy efficient swimmers of all animals. The large and often colourful jellyfish are most common in coastal zones, but can be found all over the world, from surface waters to the deep sea.

While the medusa only lives for a few months, they have been roaming the oceans for over 500 million years, making them the oldest multi-organ animal group. The Medusozoa include many groups such as the crown jellyfish, the stalked jellyfish, the box jellyfish or the Discomedusae as well as the Trachylinae. While they are all called jellyfish, they actually look very different and especially beautiful when light at night.

18,00 USD

Sky Disc Aurora Australis

Sky Disc Aurora Australis & Scenic Disc Snow and Ice

Aurora Australis & Snow and Ice

Aurora australis are natural light displays in the Earth's sky, usually visible around the around the Antarctic region. Auroras occur when the Earth's magnetosphere is disturbed by the solar wind. Both, the solar winds and the magnetospheric plasma contain charged particles, electrons and protons. When these collide, the protons and electrons for Hydrogen atoms. This fusion releases energy which is visible in the form of a tiny flash. Depending on the amount of energy becoming available, the flash has a different colour. Most of the time, the colour is green-blue, but also red or yellow can be observed. All of these flashed together appear as moving or "dancing" lights.

Auras can occur at different altitudes and different mechanisms can lead to the emission of light. While science still has not fully understand the whole phenomenon, most people just enjoy watching them. Some of them travel for hours to just to hope to be able to see them.

This discs comes with a scenic disc showing a snow trees and inuksuit. The horizon viewers feel the coldness that comes with auroras.

22,00 USD

Sky Disc Galaxies

Galaxies

Galaxy is derived from the Greek word for “milky”, referring to the Milky Way, the galaxy that contains the solar system and that we live in. Galaxies are gravitationally bound systems of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust and dark matter. Their size ranges from just a few hundred million to one hundred trillion stars. Many galaxies comprise a supermassive black hole at the centre. It is then that black hole that is the galaxy's centre of mass and around which all the galaxy's stars are orbiting.

Galaxies are usually categorized according to their visual morphology. The can be of elliptical, spiral or irregular shape. Irregular shapes include ultra diffuse galaxies, lenticular galaxies, ring galaxies as well as galaxies with disrupted or completely irregular structures.

It is estimated that there are about 200 billion to 2 trillion galaxies, containing more stars than there are grains of sand on our planet. Due to the vast number, most of the galaxies are either unnamed or are just known by a number and often lack a descriptive name. The galaxies shown are knows as: Centaurus A (NGC 5128), NGC 253, NGC 454, NGC 520, NGC 986, NGC 1232 and NGC 6050, which is colliding with IC 1179.

18,00 USD

Sky Disc Nebulae

Nebulae

Nebula is Latin and means “cloud” or “fog”. Nebulae are interstellar clouds of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases. They are usually very big, up to hundreds of light years in diameter. The Orion Nebula is the brightest nebula in the sky. It occupies a region twice as big as the Moon. It can be seen by the naked eye but early astronomers have missed it because of the low brightness. Interestingly, if viewed from closer by, a nebula appears larger but not brighter.

While there is more material in a nebular than in the space surrounding them, they are still made up of very few atoms. A nebula of the size of the Earth only weights a few kilograms and its density is by magnitudes lower than any man-made vacuum on Earth.

The nebulas shown are known as ESO 378-1, Ring Nebula (M57), Crab nebula (NGC 1952), NGC 6543, Saturn Nebula (NGC 7009), Toby Jug Nebula (IC 2220), RCW 49 and the Orion A molecular cloud consisting of M42, M43, NGC 1980, NGC 1981, L1641, OMC-1, OMC-2, OMC-3 and OMC-4.

18,00 USD

Sky Disc Southern Hemisphere

Sky Disc Warped Andromeda

Southern Hemisphere and Warped Andromeda

The southern hemisphere discs complements the included northern hemisphere disc and shows the sky as it can be seen from the southern hemisphere. The discs is designed for latitude around 35° south. This is a circle around the Earth which passes through the Australian capital Canberra, Auckland on the northern island of New Zealand, Cape Town and Buenos Aires. The sky includes the light of almost 15 000 000 stars.

The Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy. It has first been mentioned in 964 as a “small cloud”. As the name suggests, the galaxy is in the Andromeda constellation. The present image comes from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and highlights the older stellar population in blue. On the upper left side of the galaxy, a pronounced warp in the disc can be seen. This is the result of a collision with another galaxy.

29,00 USD

Sky Disc Day Earth and Moon

Sky Disc Night Earth and Moon

Day and Night Earth and Moon

The disc shows Earth from above the Christmas and Cocos Islands, not far from Indonesia's capital Jakarta. A bright full moon is visible in the back. Sun, the viewer, Earth and the Moon are almost on one line. While the viewer is located about 700 000 km above the Earth towards the sun, the moon lies about 384 400 km in the opposite direction behind the Earth. This constellation is very rare and might have occurred for example on 1 March 2002. In a perfect alignment, Earth's shadow would be visible on the Moon, which is known as a lunar eclipse. On the discs, Earth and Moon have been magnified fifty times in order to make details visible to the human eye.

The disc shows Earth from above the Red Sea between Eritrea and Yemen. The full moon is visible in front and from the far side, which is not illuminated by the sun. The viewer, Moon, Earth and the Sun are almost on one line. While the viewer is located about 700 000 km above the Earth away from the sun, the moon lies about 384 400 km in between the viewer and Earth. The constellation might have occurred on 9 November 2011. In comparison with the days discs, the moon is only about a third as far, making it much bigger on the night disc. On the discs, Earth and Moon have been magnified fifty times in order to make details visible to the human eye.

29,00 USD