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GOTO HYBRID Planetarium® CHRONOS II New Release!!
■ The Best Gets Better
Since its introduction in 2002, the new GOTO CHRONOS rapidly became America's fastest-selling new opto-mechanical planetarium projector. Its extremely accurate and fast digitally-driven sun, moon, and planet projectors and its beautiful skies made it the instant number one.

Planetarians fell in love with the ergonomically-designed control console and the effortless live programming it supported so well. It had very low lamp and maintenance costs, had a wealth of constellation outlines and other features previously seen only on much larger machines, yet was priced very competitively. And not long after GOTO INC developed the world's first HYBRID planetarium in 2004, the CHRONOS was also synchronized with fulldome video in a HYBRID. What could be better?

■ Times Change
The planetarium environment has changed somewhat since 2002. Fulldome video, developed and shown publicly first by GOTO in 1996, has matured to the point where many of the visualizations previously done with slides, film, and special effects projectors can now be done adequately with digital video. And more producers are gaining skill in creating animations for this new medium.
Planetarians still need the tools to create their own programs which fulfill the needs of their audiences, and to react to new celestial events quickly, or to answer questions immediately. So for many users, fulldome is not enough. So it's time for the new CHRONOS II.

But there is still a need for a planetarium projection system that can be operated live by an educator in real time, without time-consuming pre-scripting. Educational institutions still need a beautiful pinpoint sharp sky with 8,500 or more tiny stars showing against an inky black background, and user-friendly controls. And they need swift and computer-accurate positioning of objects on the sky and a user-friendly set of status displays to help the operator do an excellent live or automated program.

■ It’s green!
Well no, it's still purple, but the CHRONOS II is the world's first full-featured planetarium projector to be 100% illuminated by energy-efficient, extremely long-life light emitting diodes (LEDs)! This means the CHRONOS II consumes about 1/3 the power of the previous CHRONOS, and you will never again change a burned out light bulb in the middle of a show! Other benefits of the LED technology are that it runs cooler, thus requiring fewer and quieter cooling fans, and that users can expect brilliant projections for 30,000 hours or more before the LEDs need easy replacement.

■ It’s brighter!
New GOTO star plate technology, paired with state of the art LED technology yields star images that are exactly the same size as the previous CHRONOS' tiny stars, but are more than five (5) times brighter! That means the CHRONOS II is now great for domes from 8-16 meters (26-53 feet) in diameter, and it shows up great with video in HYBRID configurations!

■ It can have a ‘real’ Milky Way
Besides the standard, independently dimmable, diffuse Milky Way of the original CHRONOS, users can now choose an optional, very high-res Milky Way. Imagine 10,000,000 tiny "micro-stars" painting a very subtle, very real Milky Way across the dome. Our Galaxy is divided into multiple detailed slides, and each is focused with precision GOTO optics. Bring your binoculars!

■ It is a pleasure to control
GOTO knows how planetarium educators use their equipment. We know that instructors must have full and flexible control of the planetarium at all times. When students fill the dome, there is no time for programming complex computers, or even searching command menus on glowing monitors to make something happen. Instead, planetarians expect smooth, simple control at their fingertips, even in complete darkness.

That's why GOTO provides the planetarium industry's most complete and flexible manual control console. Real, dedicated sliders, push button switches, and jog-dial analog motion controls are laid out in an ergonomic fashion that has been tested by and developed with actual planetarium educators - not just engineers!

So complex motions of the sky, jumps to different dates and times, overlaid graphics, and much much more is possible with a single touch of a control. This eliminates the need for time-consuming pre-programming for the vast majority of educational uses. And if the user desires to pre-program an entire show, that is easily done with the CHRONOS II HYBRID's sophisticated yet simple choice of interfaces.

■ It's compact and durable
The CHRONOS II uses the same, proven technology for motion and control that the superb CHRONOS used. Expect a 30-year lifetime for this machine, with easy, low-maintenance features throughout the design. At only 1.1. meters long, the CHRONOS II's main body presents a very small profile, and the entire projector easily fits down into the elevator pits of older pinhole projectors, making it the prefect projector for both replacement work and new installations.

■ It can cost less!
The CHRONOS II was born to be a HYBRID. That is, GOTO has given users the opportunity to leave off features that can be adequately shown with a synchronized fulldome video system. So the CHRONOS II concentrates its efforts on a perfect recreation of a pure night sky, extreme accuracy and speed of motions, and the ultimate in ease and depth of manual control - but nothing else.

The GOTO CHRONOS II HYBRID Planetarium system adds the power of dynamic, real-time, fulldome video to complement the strengths of the opto-mechanical projector, all under the control of a console that puts tremendous versatility at the operators' fingertips.

For those who want a full-featured opto-mechanical projector only, or who want to wait until later to add the video component of a HYBRID system, various option packages are available to turn the CHRONOS II into a brighter, greener, even more beautiful version of the original CHRONOS - ready for upgrade to HYBRID at any time.

＊ Specifications subject to change without notice.