DeAgostini Japan – Weekly Celestial Model: Build the Solar System

Closed.Weekly orrery partwork launched in January 2009 and finished after its planned 52 issues.

What's in the box: Each weekly issue paired an astronomy magazine with a set of parts for building the solar system model.

This series is no longer running: DeAgostini Japan's weekly celestial model partwork, which had you build an orrery of the solar system, launched in January 2009 and ended after its planned 52 issues. It was sold mainly in Japan. Like other DeAgostini partworks, each weekly issue came with a magazine and a set of parts. Over the course of the series, readers put the parts together into a model of the Sun and planets. The magazines covered astronomy and space topics, so the series was part reading material and part construction project. DeAgostini Japan is still in business and still sells many other partworks, including character figures, model cars and DVD collections. Its current lineup does not include this orrery series, and the site does not say whether back issues or replacement parts are available. If you want to finish an incomplete set, you would probably have to look on the secondhand market, and complete sets may be hard to find. Anyone interested in a similar build should check DeAgostini Japan's current catalogue or look at other makers of orrery kits rather than trying to join this one.