1947: Another era of custom-built projectors was initiated by Armand Spitz (1904-1971). His first public lecture with the assistance of his instrument took place at the Harvard Observatory in 1947. Two years before he constructed a projector that was to approximate the star globe by an icosahedron. The stackling and drilling of star holes into flat sheets would make the production process easier and cheaper than a star globe. Later, following a suggestion by Albert Einstein, Spitz used a dodecahedron as the equivalent for it. He demonstrated it at an astronomical conference and received considerable publicity.

1958: The leading Japanese industrialist Seizo Goto, who established his company to produce telescopes in 1926, expanded to include projectors for planetaria. Only a little later, the Minolta Company got into the same act and presented its first projector "Model #1" (image) at the Science Exhibition in Hanshin Park in Koshien (close to Kobe). It was not until the end of the 1960ies, when the company decided to continue this branch and improve the technics. The next steps forward came with the MS-series. A full automation system based on a microcomputer was developed in 1978 and integrated into the model MS-18.

1984: After a considerable re-development, Minolta launched its model "Infinium", the world's first single-sphere projector. The dumbbell-form was released from its planetary cage, and the projectors for the solar system objects moved to a special platform outside. Thus, the ball could be adjusted easier and faster to its designated position. Zeiss picked up this innovation and adopted it to its latest models since 1987. In 1996, Zeiss improved the imaging quality stars of the sky by using fibre glass for each star. Now, both the star ball and the fibres are the substantial elements of the modern opto-mechanical projector. The most modern large- and middle-sized planetariums in the world deploy it.

One of the greatest compilations of planetarium projectors is the so-called Planetarium Museum in Big Bear Lake about 150 km East of Los Angeles, California. It exhibits various opto-mechanical star projectors from different manufacturers and ages going as back as to the 1940s. Some of them are unique constructions that never went into serial production. Almost all of kinds of devices can be inspected here. The visitors get an insight into the history of technics, improvements in construction and the different designs as needed for the celestial presentation.

1993: The audio-visual shows in the planetarium altered as the technology advanced. Pre-recorded shows became available, graphical all-sky pictures filled the dome, and digitalisation entered the stage. Such features were due to a computer-controlled system of peripherical devices like tapes, slides, and video projectors. The first moving scenes were possible when computers generated the image which was then projected onto the dome. A single projector installed near the centre is employed with a fish-eye lens to spread the light over the whole dome surface, while in other configurations of two or more projectors are arranged at the verge and interlinked to blend together seamlessly. This system is called "fulldome".