Show me your Star Ceiling - Page 2

From the pictures that you posted... that has to be one of the nicest FO star fields I've ever seen. The stars don't look like pegboard, with all the stars looking the same distance apart (which is hard to do) and there seems to be a combination of sizes. Very nice!!!

Jeff
Night Sky Murals

Their are 3 sizes of fibers with two LED light engines so I can very the brightness between stars.

I started with an actual star map and then added to my liking because the real star map didn't look to have enough stars to me.

Silly question, but how do people use these things? Are they not distracting while watching a movie? I understand how cool they'd look, and you could turn off the lighted ones. But how about the black light ones? Does anybody ever wish they hadn't done it?

Never notice it while watching a movie (if it is a good movie)

The only thing it does do is add some ambient light to the room, which if you are a black level freak could be a problem. But it is nice to have a little light so you can see snaks and such.

Ok, thanks for the answer. I'm kinda anal about lots of things, so I can only assume black levels to be one.

Though I suppose the fiber gives you the option, at least. And it would be a pretty cool way to provide ambient light.

By the way, your ceiling looks stunning

I do not notice the stars when watching a movie either. I have a movie setting on my grafik eye that does dim the stars down in order to keep the ambient light down. I have asked everyone that has watched a movie in my theater if they would prefer the stars off and everyone has wanted them left on.

Here's my diy star ceiling 48" in diameter. Its a presentation of the evening sky for the month of August, 2008. I used 4 different fiber sizes and 2 light controller. The edges represents the horizon.

Are you sure your FOSI Constellation stars are a larger size fiber? My FOSI System uses all the same size fiber but the milky way stars are dimmed by filters at the illuminator. Just wondering if they do something different in the pre built panels. One of the big advantages of the FOSI system in my opinion is the fact that is uses all the same fiber size and the illuminator gives you a lot of variation in star brightness (which does make them look smaller)

Since others have answered about the FO star ceilings being visible during a movie... and since I have no clue how that would work, I will talk about the painted ceilings visibility.

If there is no soffit around the edge of the room that would block light from the projector and from the screen... then most of the stars in the mural would be washed out and not visible. If a person wanted to see stars, sit still had no soffit to block light.... then they could turn on some black light from down low and the stars would then fluoresce, not glow. So, stars could be seen if wanted or not if they were not wanted. During a dark scene.... there might be a handful of stars visible.

For rooms with large enough soffits to block uplight.... and with the paint charged up and ready to glow.... then you would see stars up in that space for a good part of the movie, but you would have to actually take your eyes off of the screen and look up to see them. They are not distracting at all. I watched a movie in a theater room that I'd painted (a year after having painted it) and I would look up from time to time to see how things were up on the ceiling... and it was nice. But, totally not distracting (and I am riddled with ADD... so I understand distracting - "Squirrel" :-)

Hope that helps...

Jeff
Night Sky Murals

Thank for the the response. That is kinda what I figured, but I'm glad to hear this from someone "in the know."

I used my projector to project my template onto the mdf panels and traced it out with a sharpie. It worked great. I propped up each panel on a drywall lift so they were vertical and just zoomed the projector the appropriate amount to fill the panels. Especially, If your doing multiple panels, I'd suggest overlaying a grid on your template so its easier to zoom the projector and orient your template on the panel. I used different shapes for each fiber size. X for large, triangle for medium, circle for small. with a dot in the middle for the exact star location. Different shapes are a lot easier to pick out that different colors when running the fibers.

What are the issues with just poking the holes in the drywall for the FO stars? Do you really have to install it in MDF and then hang that from the ceiling? My room will be 18.5'x30" If I plan on doing a 16" wide soffit that will come down to about 8' from the floor will that provide too big of a space for the stars?

If I understand your question correctly you are wondering why you can't just punch holes in your finished ceiling for the fibers to come through, right? You have to have a space to run all the fibers back to the light source. This is probably the main reason you can't just punch holes in the ceiling. The MDF (or other materials) allows you to hang the stars just below the finished ceiling and give you the space you need to run bundles of fibers to wherever you have your light source or sources. Even if you had attic access above your room can you imagine crawling around insulation trying to find all the tiny little holes you drilled? And the joists that hold the drywall up would keep you from putting any stars where they are located. This would give you lines across your ceiling that are void of stars. Secondly, for those who are worried about soundproofing their room, this would obviously create holes in their "shell". And lastly, I'm sure this wouldn't help the 5/8" drywall that is supposed to help contain a fire in a house to one level, giving you time to escape. Granted they aren't very large holes but I wouldn't want to take a chance.

Ok, so panels are the way to go. I'm convinced. Now my second question was based on the size of my room and the perimeter soffit I am contemplating will that be too big of a star ceiling?

Well they can never be to big right? But one thing to keep in mind is they do add alot of ambient light to the room believe it or not. I have an 8' oct star ceiling, that is 53 square feet of star ceiling in a 285 square foot room. It make enough light that you can walk around in the room no problem, but that also hurts the blacks on the projector a little bit, not huge but some.
Edited by Mopar_Mudder - 11/30/12 at 8:56am

Mopar_Mudder, I just looked at you build and it looks great! My question is not related to star ceilings so sorry for the de-railing. Can you tell me what parts I'd need to get to make a rack like yours? Specifically the metal strips and clips? I assume you routered out a channel and inset those strips?
(I didn't see a build thread or I would have asked my question in it)

Also keep in mind that your going to need a LOT of fiber to do a larger than average star ceiling. each star point needs a home run back to the illuminator. I'd suggest doing a mock layout in a cad program to see how many stars there will be in your layout and estimate your fiber runs. even adding a foot or two to each run increases your fiber needs pretty quickly when your talking about 100's or even over 1000 stars. Building a large star ceiling is no small undertaking. It takes lots of time and isnt exactly cheap, but it is well worth it. For a ceiling your size, i'd expect it to take a few weeks to construct it, so just be prepared to put in the time. I think mine was around 7 hours of actual work per 4x8 panel.

While some of the individual stars are a bit bright at times, I dont consider the ambient light from the stars to be a big distraction during movies, and i dont think its enough that i could walk around in the room with the lights off. Mopar and I have very similar layouts and i think we use the same illuminator too, but mine is spread out over a larger area (not as dense), so that might make a difference too.

It is deffinetely not a distraction, and we normally have it on for all movies. I just wanted to warn about the ambient light ebcause I know some of the hard core have to have the most contrast / black hole room possible would not like it. Alot of work yes, worth it, for sure. To give you some idea of numbers of stars per square foot, I have 852 stars in my ceiling. That works out to 16 stars per square foot of star ceiling and 3 stars per square foot of room.

Here is a few pics of the star ceiling my wife and I made using 3/4 inch MDF, GOM FR701,and cool sky illuminators. This is part of a total rebuild of the theater so we are waiting to trim the fibers closer to the ceiling until construction is done.

Very nice! Is this a FOSI system? What are "cool sky" illuminators? Can you share an additional picture of your illuminator here?

Jason, I think that star ceiling is really going to add to the angled wall room. Looks like you and S did a great job on it.

It's not a FOSI system. My wife got a star map for the month of November online and printed it out to our scale for the template. We then bought three different sizes of fibers by the spool(.75,1.00,1.5mm) from wiedamark.com
Search coolsky as one word sorry I don't have a pic handy

Thanks. I found the link for those following this thread: http://www.fiberopticproducts.com/Coolsky_light_unit.htm

$100 for the main unit ain't too shabby!!

One follow-up question - do you happen to know what website you used to get the exact sky within a chronological date?

Step 1 determine what month of the night sky you want, we chose November since that is when our anniversary is. Google month star map and find the image you like I chose the following because I thought it made a nice Milky Way outline. https://www.google.com/search?q=november+star+map&hl=en&client=safari&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=CWlYUYOKJJLU8wSd4ICABQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=320&bih=504#biv=i%7C40%3Bd%7C55tGItOX03CgXM%3A

Step 2 Cut and paste image into the paint program that's on every computer from there you need to MIRROR the image or you star ceiling will be backwards on install. Also, if you used a black background map you meed to INVERT the colors or you will be buying 3 black ink cartridges before the project is over.

Step 3 You need to scale the image the size of the ceiling ours is 16'Lx8'W. to be honest I can't quite remember if I did this by cut and paste into a PDF file or if I used poster razor, anyways I used this link http://m.instructables.com/id/Star-Map/step10/Attaching-the-map-to-the-back-of-the-substrate/ as guide to do all of this.

Step 4 Cut and Paste image into PDF and print options select PRINT TILES Make sure your printer prints the page numbers or you will be lost and that it prints reverse order for example 3,2,1 instead of 1,2,3.

I have still have our scaled November map if anyone wants a copy, I am doing these steps from memory, so if anyone had any questions just ask, it really isn't that big of a deal once you get started.

We decided against a FOSI once we got a quote from them and realized that we could do it for much cheaper. Also, I will post later on how to make a homemade illuminator.

An added touch