Deep Space Explorer

Rating:
Summary: Data and idea are excellent, Interface is so so.
Review: Defenitely worth the money. A great effort. However, here is what I didn't like:
-Photos of galaxies are not that good, I've seen much better photos on line.
-Space ship mode (where you fly through the cosmos) was unusable (tooooo slow) on a 1.5GHz and ATI Radeon.
-Controls (especially zooming)and program look are archaic and somewhat illogical (akin to early 90s games).
-Could not find anyway to adjust slewing speed.
-Every now and then slewing becomes jerky or the screen turns white until destination is reached.
-Photos are not scaled (e.g. GL). Several photos of various sizes seem to be stored instead, the result is that as you approach an object it continues being the same size until a threshold is reached then it gets larger. Not a smooth transition.
-The narration of the videos is far too dramatic and annoying (who cares about the videos though).

Rating:
Summary: Amazing sense of scale!
Review: I really enjoyed this program. I agree with the other reviews I read here, that it has a lot of controls to figure out and it is just a bunch of galaxies. On the other hand, no one knows much about what's inside those galaxies and I bet nebulae and such will appear in version 2.0!
The movies and tech talk are very informative, and interesting even if you know most of it. You need to have the CD in for those, but you can run the simulation program just from your hard-drive, which is cool.
The best thing about this program is the sense of scale you get in the simulation. You have to be travelling at ludicrous speed, like a billion billion times the speed of light to get anywhere in a descent amount of time. The universe is a really big place -- perhaps one of the biggest!
I recommend this program for the educational mini-movies and the thrill of piloting around 30,000 galaxies. It is well-executed, fun, mind-opening, and awe-inspiring.

Rating:
Summary: Galaxies only
Review: I was really looking forward to getting my hands on this, but was a bit disappointed.
First, the good news - the 3D views of galaxies are really special, and zooming from one to the next can be real fun, as is slowing down for some lazy flybys of any that particularly strike my fancy. The animations are great, too.
My only complaint is that this is a bit limited in scope. I would kill for some good 3D explorations of nebulae ("flying" along the pillars of the Eagle nebulae or among the cometary knots of the Helix nebulae would be worth any price), but this concentrates almost entirely on galaxies. Once you get to one there isn't really anything to do except fly around it.
You don't even get to play around inside our own Milky Way other than zooming into the Sun.
If you buy this strictly for the galaxies and the fact that everything is real, you'll certainly enjoy it. Just don't expect any suprise and delight.

Rating:
Summary: Good entertainment and learning package
Review: The pros are it has a lot of information about the physical universe. The 3d views and mini movies are great. The cons are it has a lot of controls so children might find it a little overwhelming. Once you get the hang of the program it is great. I am very happy with this purchase and if I had to do it again I would. So if you are patient and have a couple of hours to learn how to use the program then anyone who wants to know about the planets and universe would benefit from this program.