GOTO INC announces that the world's first PANDORA II has been successfully installed in Yonezawa Japan. The PANDORA II (to be called PANDIA II in international sales) is the latest in a long line of planetarium projectors designed for small and medium sized domes.

The new PANDORA II is at the Yonezawa Children's Hall planetarium, a 32 year-old facility which serves to cultivate independence and stimulate creativity in the city's children. It is hoped in this way that they will realize an active and happy self-development. The planetarium plays a role in reaching this goal by taking children from infancy through the third year of junior high on soaring trips through the Universe.

Originally opened in 1983, the large old equipment was retired, and the new GOTO PANDORA II HYBRID system re-opened the totally renovated dome on May 2, 2015. Besides new seats, new flooring, and a brand new dome, GOTO also coordinated the installation of the PANDORA II HYBRID, which includes not only the opto-mechanical PANDORA II, but also GOTO's own VIRTUARIUM X fulldome video system, and a manual control console which facilitates easy and effective live programming. The entire system is totally linked and synchronized, so that a single control system operates both the opto-mechanical and fulldome systems simultaneously.

PANDORA II is contained in a 48cm (19 inch) diameter starball 1/5th the size of the old projector, allowing for a view of the sky without much of the obstruction of the old projector. PANDORA II shows a beautiful sky of 9,500 stars, plus a extremely realistic Milky Way made up of 40,000,000 micro-stars. A digital shutter system enables the operator to limit the stars to a horizontal horizon, or a tilted sky, a raised horizon for panoramas, and even an exciting "bath of stars" which totally floods the theater and seats! Visitors truly feel immersed, as if they were floating in space.

All of this technology will allow Yonezawa to teach more effectively, to educate, entertain, and inspire for decades to come. Those decades will require much less maintenance than the previous ones, since the new PANDORA II utilizes 100% LED illumination. This means that lamps will not burn out, less energy is consumed, and since the machine is running much cooler than when hot light bulbs lit the stars, this projector will not require lubricating, cleaning, and mechanical adjustment nearly as often as the previous machine.

Other technical aspects of the PANDORA II include significantly smaller stars then older models, yet they are brighter than the old stars due to the high-efficiency, high-output LEDs. A much more accurate sky is projected due to modern astronomical databases which locate more than 300 emission nebulae, clusters, galaxies, and even dark nebulae. There is even a telescoping lift built into the pedestal base of the PANDORA II to lower it, opening up even more unobstructed views.

The citizens of Yonezawa are thrilled with their new planetarium, and look forward to generations of family members enjoying even better trips through the Galaxy in the years ahead.

Please visit GOTO INC at www.goto.jp.co for more information about the new PANDORA II.

Address : 3-47 Marunouchi-1chome, Yonezawa city, Yamagata 992-0052, Japan