Night Sky Inside

I have always wanted to create the night sky indoors - i.e. build a star ceiling. I thought this would be a cool lighting option for our future home theater and added a few features to spruce it up a bit.   I am working on a 4'x6' panel that will be framed and hung on the ceiling.  The stars are single an multiple strands of fiber optics as small as 0.25mm in diameter and are powered by very bright LEDs (3mm).  I made what I call 'illuminators' that can light up about 50 fibers.  Each illuminator can be set at a specific intensity and some are made to flicker ever so slightly so that when you put it all together it gives a more realistic night sky.

Anyway, the panel is built as you can see in the photo below and I have completed prototyping the electronics.  I am using a pair of Atmega microprocessors for controllers (one controls the lights and is operated via an IR remote control with a touchscreen panel that contains the 2nd microprocessor).

The paper that is covering the panel is my template for drilling the star locations.  It is the north sky seen from Ottawa on our wedding anniversary.

This next photo is a close-up of 5 stars that I was experimenting with to get the right sizes and texture on the panel so that the fiber is unseen when not illuminated.

More to come, but this project is crawling along so it might be a bit yet.