Monday, December 31, 2012

Star map on your ceiling made easy


Turn your ceiling into a glow in the dark star map! This took me a few days to complete, and stayed on my ceiling for 20 years... (I made this metric. You can translate it to inches or paces or whatever..)

What you'll need:

    • A planisphere (or any small hand held bright star sky map) an example here
    • Transparent graph paper (or a pencil and ruler to draw a grid)
    • String
    • Masking tape
    • Bag of self adhesive glow in the dark stars of different size (depends on detail and accuracy required). 
    • Ladder
    • Permission from Mom & Dad (This is usually easier to ask after creating the star map...)
      • Note: I would suggest not to use stickers of planets if you want an authentic position in the sky.

  • Create a grid over the star map you want to copy
    • Overlay it with transparent graph paper
    • or draw a grid in pencil over the star map
    • or add them into the image before printing, using a graphic editor
  • Create a grid on the ceiling 
    • Be prepared - cut small pieces of masking tape and place them on the ladder, and lengths of string the length/width of the floor before you start 
    • Mark points around the edge of the ceiling 10 cm apart with a pencil or small pieces of masking tape
    • Using masking tape, paste the strings across the ceiling, creating a grid  #
  • Looking at the grid in the map in your hand, find a comfortable translation to the size of the grid on your ceiling - let's say 20:1 - but count the squares on the ceiling before you start and make sure it fits in!
  • Take the bottom left corner of the map - looking at the first 4 squares - copy the stars to the first 4 squares on your ceiling, using larger glow-in-the-dark stars for brighter stars.(you can cut the stars to get finer differences in sizes if you like)
  • Work on small parts of ceiling at a time so you don't get mixed up 
  • Once finished, remove the tape and strings from the ceiling carefully so as not to damage the paint.
  • Leave the light on for a few minutes with your eyes closed.
turn off the lights . . .  (WOW!)

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