Astronomy Reviews

We have been searching for a shuttle for a year now and are glad to have found this one. The shuttle itself is durable, yet safe enough for my one year old to play with as well as my older two. They love to fly around, dropping off the rocket boosters and the re-landing on the launch pad. The space vehicle and astonauts are an added bonus, even though they do not fit together. As a first shuttle toy, you can't beat it!

I had a lot of fun with my granchildren transforming their bedroom into a glowing galaxy. There was more than enough stars to make a bunch of constellations on their ceiling. These are easy to use and weren't messy at all. The kids love staring at the stars and pointing out the names of constellation before they go to bed at night. I was surprised when they started pointing out the real ones once we were outside one evening.
The experience really turned them on to learning about the constellations. We even ended up buying a real telescope and book about stars. What a fun way to learn for all of us.

My just-turned six-year-old opened the package and played with it for four hours! His one-year-old little brother also loves the count down and take off.

You got to give them credit for the level of detail. It is awesome and makes it worth the price. It's just to bad they did not put as much thought into the design. I bought is for my 4 year old. I takes everything I got to take it about and put back together. A screw together rather than snake would have been ideal. The thing goes to pieces everytime we take about the different stages. However, over all a very cool toy that my some loves.

My son is 4 and loves astronauts. He thinks this is a great toy but wants me to play it with him. I think the rocket is a little difficult for a 4 year old to assemble and the concept of the rocket breaking into stages is slighly bewildering. He always wants me to play it with him. (...)

You can't very well have a solar system without a sun and this product does not have one. Ridiculous!

I purchased this for my son (He just turned 2) after he was totally taken with Baby Einstein's Baby Galileo's Dvd. It's a bit of a pain with the installation (fishing wire, and those very tiny star tac's ). But other than that its a great way for children to learn about the solar system.

A must have!!!!!!!!

My daughter got one of these but never showed much interest, so we hung it in my 4-yo son's room. It was so cool, the planets glow really brightly and in different colors....Jupiter is kind of red and neptune is blueish. I take every opportunity to go in his room and watch these, I want my own set. Now all I need to do is convince my wife.
Very cool toy.

I bought this for my 3 1/2 year old who is really interested in the solar system. He loves playing with these toys and treats them well. However, they are made of a "model" type quality rather than a "play" type quality. The stickers easily slide off the pieces; which easily come apart. I was also disappointed that there was not any type of information page included to describe any of the space structures and what they are used for. The box is the most durable feature. Overall the quality and educational value is poor and could be improved, but my son still loves it.

I bought this set for my four year old son. For the price, I couldn't ask for a better toy. The pieces seem like they would break easily if a child was too rough on them. My favorite feature is the container. He has so many toys and no place to store them. The container makes clean up easy.

Poor quality - pieces do not fit well and are constantly falling apart. The most durable part is the container.

I got 3 of these solar system things at once for our five year old who's into it right now. They were roughly same price. This was the least impressive of the 3. The 2D shapes and chinsey mobile hanger make it a 2nd rate solution. I'd go for the 3D balls instead.

I bought this kit in addition to the Glow-in-the-Dark Star Explosions and had a great time turning my grandchildren's room into the solar system.
These planets look great when they are glowing in the dark and are true to their actual size proportion and color. My grandson used an additional set for a school science project, taping the planets onto a black board in their actual order from the sun, so these are good for other ideas besides decorating a room.

I bought this set for my 10 year old daughter and she loves it. The planets are easy to snap together and there is plenty of paint. My favorite feature is the glow in the dark paint. It can be painted on after the regular paint dries, or you can mix it with the colored paint for a different effect. It didn't glow as bright as I'd hoped, but that wasn't a big deal. The paint dried surprisingly fast, we were able to apply two coats of colored paint and the glow in the dark stuff in under two hours. I would recommend using a smaller paintbrush than the one included. We used a q-tip for the details. The sun and Saturn come with plastic rings, and there is even a poster of the solar system. The mobile was pretty easy to put together, and the instructions are very clear, my daughter did most of it by herself. We have it hanging on the ceiling in my daughter's room, so no one can touch it. When we were hanging it up, I accidentally scratched Pluto and some of the paint came off. Overall this is a great toy. I would recommend this toy for older children. I can't see a five year old painting details on the little planets and putting together the mobile.

not a bad little telescope but the eye pieces are of the poorest
quality .not what i expected from a company with such a good name.
if you use the scope with out the 3x barlow (total junk) and with out angle mirror (also very poor resoslution )and use the eye piece dirrectly its just ok . then add a stone or other near by heavy object on tripod stay and the shaking will stop..
adjust the thumb screws so you get just enough resistance to move scope -good luck -and buy better eye pieces if you plan to keep it ..

Its nice and you can look at the stars and its so fun.

with this cheap and cheerful 'scope from Meade. I liked their 90-AZ-F model far more, but it's [$$$] more expensive and you have to purpose build a stable viewing platform out of red brick in order to use it, so as a compromise, the 60-AZ-D is a much better choice. For children wishing to spy on school friends two blocks down you can't go wrong with this. Does exactly what it says on the box - "Warning - this product may contain nuts."

This isn't "great". If you can print out a picture of a constellation, and figure out where North is, on your own, then you have done just about all that this little thing can do.

I'm sure everyone remembers as a child looking up at the sky at night to find the Big Dipper, ect.. Well, that's something i'm sure that we all still do as Adults from time to time. This is a great toy for kids and Adults to find their constellations easier! A great learning toy for school project too! This would also be great to keep children busy during long car rides at night. A must have toy :-)

MY SEVEN YEAR OLD LOVE AND ENJOY THIS TOY. IT KEEPS HIM BUSY FOR HOURS LOOKING AND NAMING THE STARS.

my son recieved this set for his 6th birthday and it was a huge disappointment! He was so excited because he wanted to see mars and we couldn't even see the full moon through the telescope! The binoculars are great which is the only reason I gave it two stars, but the telescope isn't worth the cardboard that it came in. You would think you would be ablt to see something even if it isn't the most advanced equipment but after numerous tries by everyone we never saw squat!