I'm at home from uni currently and while talking to me mother and she told me that she recently found my National Geographic constellation planetarium in the attic. This brought back so many memories! When I was eight, my parents got me this clear globe covered in specks of glow-in-the-dark paint that, when the light in the middle of the globe was turned on, would project around my room a beautiful map of the stars above the earth. I remember sitting with her, reading a book about all of the constellations, and she would urge me to find them all. With this 'globe' came a torch that actually shone out a tiny comet with which I could sail around the stars. I still remember more clearly than anything my old bedroom, the globe and the projection it shone around the room but most of all I remember this feeling of total amazement.

I was always a kid invested in science (my career and hobbies have pulled me towards literature in recent years but science is still a great passion) and I remember all of my books about dinosaurs and the universe that I would read in the light of the small firmament in my room. If any Brits in these forums have ever visited http://www.life.org.uk/whats-on museum, you can probably guess that that place was my Mecca. It is just... a truly awe-inspiring place. Seriously, if you have an interest in science or have kids and you're looking for somewhere to go, go here! But, I digress... After I got this constellation lamp I would drag my parents to the Life Centre as often as I could, and it serves as a permanent reminder of the amazement, passion and interest I had as a child. Good memories

I've nothing to say except to thank you for a really nice story. I'll get one of those for my kids - they sound great.

The first time I felt awestruck was when I was three, and a Shetland pony had escaped and wondered into our back garden. It was one of the UK's very rare "white Christmases", and seeing this tiny white horse (barely taller than I was) standing on the white lawn as the huge white flakes of snow fell around it felt genuinely magical - like that bit in Legend with the unicorn.

Most recently, it was the first time I grokked the scale of the solar system. I mean, I knew since I was about six that the moon was 240,000 miles away (or whatever, it varies), but I had never understood that, or the vast distances between planets and other space objects, until very recently. Now I just stare up at the moon and think "it's really big ... and really far away!"

(The conversation I had with my friend about it, after which she was similarly awestruck, was a lot like the bit in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFTgkibl7DU.)

At the age of 3, [censored] hell, that must have felt like a fairy tale.

I still get awestruck whenever I behold the sea. The crashing waves, rhythmically rising and falling since time immemorial. The unfathomable and mysterious dark depths teeming with life and concealing unknown secrets. The great expanse separating people and cultures yet the thoroughfare by which the world is connected. It's majesty. It's terror. It's beauty. I love it.

I had a quick bash through the Nat Geo website but couldn't find one for you, sadly. When I go up into the attic tonight and actually get the thing up and running, I'll find out the product's proper name, hopefully that will yield more results

That's a good one, actually, and I can't believe I didn't mention it! I was born in a seaport city, but have lived in the middle of the country for a long, long time. Whenever I visit the sea, I feel more... complete.

You should try Elite Dangerous sometime.
Sometimes i just drop out of FTL and look at the distances. The station i launched from is over 100.000 lightseconds away, the target is 200.000 lightseconds away (1 lightsecond ~ 300.000 km, or roughly three times Earth's circumference). Or in practice, one eternity behind, two ahead. And then realize how massively that is scaled down from reality, stars aren't anywhere near that "close" to each other.
The Big Empty is [censored] scary, even in a game

As for me i'm too old to remeber, and too worn out to feel like that again