StellaSphaera, the night sky on paper maquette

Description

Suopte StellaSphaera is an application with which you can create a do-it-yourself (DIY) paper maquette of the night sky. The scale model fabricated from the generated PDF is an inside out celestial sphere, it is a skyglobe with several astronomical objects on it visible with naked eyes (88 constellations from the IAU catalogue and up to 4995 stars). Suopte StellaSphaera may be helpful for amateur astronomers who watch the night sky with naked eyes or low performance telescope learning about constellations and stars. It may also be recommended for paper maquette/scale model funs, who would like to enrich their collection with a special piece.

Prerequisites

You can fabricate your own scale model in 3 major steps (1. generating PDF; 2. printing; 3. assembly). The third step requires some manual skills. The whole procedure takes about 2-6 hours depending on the smoothness of the sphere. For the assembly of suopte StellaSphaera you'll need

  • 5-20 sheets of A/4 format paper (depending on the diameter and smoothnes of the maquette)
  • a printer
  • a pair of scissors
  • a ruler (preferably at least 30 cm long)
  • some glue
  • optional: a pair of calipers

Generating StellaSphaera PDF

Before generating the blueprint of the scale model you can adjust several parameters according to your needs (click Adjust preferences tab below), but if you are not sure, you can also use default settings for a 12 cm StellaSphaera model (click Generate PDF button).

Before generating StellaSphaera PDF please confirm that you are not a robot, but a human person by solving the image recognition test below.

Confirm human
Adjust preferences
Generate PDF

Scale model

Radius (mm)
Vertical segments (right ascension ring count)
Horizontal segments (declination ring count)
Color scheme
Black & white
Klepesta-Rükl
Night sky

Stars

Star magnitude treshold
Star diameter
Star name magnitude treshold
Star name font size

Constellations

Constellation name font size

Lines

Generate StellaSphaera PDF
Reset defaults


Please type the word in the image into the input field
above without accents and all lowercase!

Instructions for the assembly in pictures

Sources

Legal notices

The source code of this project is proprietary. The generated PDF documents can be used absolutely free of charge for non commercial purposes. Redistribution of the generated PDF files in any form (e.g.on other websites, printed sheets) is not allowed. All rights reserved.

Request for Feedback
Please take a little time to give me feedback about the application and use the bence@suopte.com email address to
  • report a bug
  • tell what should be improved
  • request new functions
  • request new color schemes
  • send photos of your own maquettes.
Photos would be used to create a user contributed gallery of StellaSphaera maquettes to demonstrate various settings and color schemes.
Your opinion or contribution would be highly appreciated.
Author: Bence Ágg • All rights reserved.
2013.05.13.