Artificial Starfield build

[Mav359]

I have started to build an artifical starfield in order to aid in the setup of my hyperstar along with reducing the setup time. The whole thing came about by me buying a hubble optics artficial start, their calculation for their star against my setup says that @6.5m i should be good and i can get 10m indoors so i should hopefully be able to perfect my setup indoors during the day and waste no more clear skies.

Its just a quick project, it may not even work but heres what ive done so far....

I've taken a 6mm piece of hardboard, framed it with 10mm x 10mm timber and the place a scond piece of 6mm hardboard within the frame. I then ran 12 lenghts of LED strip lights across the board and have wired them all up from underneath. The whole thing is A3 in size.

On top i have a pre-cut piece of 1mm Alluminium which will have 0.1mm holes drilled (still waiting on those drill bits) into it matching the LED's position. Hopefully if it works it will present me a evenly lit star field across my FOV at which point i can then setup my hyperstar perfectly.

There has been some concearn that the 1mm Ally may be too think so that might have to be swapped out for a sheet af tin foil but i wanted to try the ally first as it keeps the whole thing a bit more robust. I will be mounting a 12v battery box on the back & possible a dimmer switch if its required, i will also add a tripod adator bracket so i can mount it on a tripod.

Its currently lit using just a 9v battery and its quite bright so once at full power i am expecting a bit more. The whole thing probably isn't more then £25

Thoughts and opinions as always would be welcome

[Psychobilly]

Just a thought...

You could always put the tinfoil with the pinholes behind the ally with an easier to drill hole size say 1mm in it...

Peter...

[Mav359]

Good idea

Im gonna mock up a template later of the location of all the leds and have a test run with the tin foil anyway

[SnakeyJ]

Peter's idea sounds good, though intrigued by these 0.1mm drills, which sound rather fine and probably expensive  - is the hole diameter this critical?   If you followed Peter's suggestion of a foil backed plate, could you just pierce the foil with a fine pin / needle to get these?

[Mav359]

heres a link for the drill bits

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151120390274?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

China's finest i imagine , they may well be rubbish (they probably are) but will be using the flexi head on my dremel to work with them so i could be a bit more delicate. In my head keeping the holes as small as possible just made sense based on other artficial stars. What peters idea does though is make the job easier and allow me to correct for my inevietble errors

[Psychobilly]

I wish you luck with it.. Small diameter drill's require high speed, smooth feed and need to be held perfectly square to the material being drilled... I have probably drilled  many thousands of  sub mm holes in my life and snapped a lot of drills even when using the proper kit...

Peter...

[Mav359]

Few more bits done today...

Cabling all done and the battery box is in. Used Peters idea of the tinfoil so i have used a pin and a template i made up and have piecered the foil. I have also marked the Ally sheet ready to Drill just waiting on the bits to arrive.

I'll back it tomorrow, add a bit of eding to tidy it up a bit and black it out

[Mav359]

I think it'll need a dimmer switch though

[Psychobilly]

Looking good

Peter...

[Mav359]

Right its pretty much finished, little tidying up to do but you get the idea....

Drilled out the plate, the drill bits were as suggessted very hard to keep going, broke a few. In the end all the holes were drill using a 0.6mm bit. There was a tin foil sheet placed over the LED's, i then used a 0.1mm bit to pierce through the plate.

Backed it and put a thread adaptor in the back and gave it a basic black coat.  I have mounted it to the tripod which arrived today and there you go, i will try and test it tomorrow with the scope, these photos are just off the phone.

thoughts as always welcome