An easy and fun project and I give you a bunch of learning activities to go with it - I also have a video tutorial you can watch. It is at the bottom of the page.

Along with this tutorial on how to make the projector comes a free template with sixteen constellations and all the plans for making it. I also have some great project and activity guidelines that will help you make the projector even more fun, (The Template for this project is here ) and a bit of a learning project so kids and people can learn more about the night sky. The activities are right here.

How it works

It is a very simple set up. It is a box with an aluminum foil lining. On one end of the box is a flashlight and on the other end is a place to put index cards with constellation pin holes in it. The flashlight shines light through the pinholes in the index card thus casting stars on a wall.

What you need to make this project:

• 1 sheet of foamboard (corrugated cardboard will work too)
• Some type of glue or a hot glue gun
• Some aluminum foil
• 1 small flashlight with a single bulb in it. Not a flashlight with multiple bulbs
• The template I give you (Here)
• An xacto or hobby knife to cut the foamboard
• Scissors
• Pencil or Pen
• Index cards (3x5) but this is optional
• Some kind of pin, pushpin or needle to pierce the star holes in the index cards

About the flashlight

Try to get and use a flashlight with a single bulb or LED in it. There are many flashlights that have multiple bulbs in them. Those are a little bit trickier to use for this project. They will often cause each star to cast multiple stars on the wall.

A single LED flashlight

Multi-LED flashlight.

Okay! Let's Make it (continue)

You can also watch the video tutorial here:

Are you interested in learning more about the night sky?

Check out my book!

My book is available on Amazon.com prime-

Writing this book has been a wonderful experience for me. I truly love telescopes and astronomy. Well.... you probably could have figured that out seeing as I have a website all about these things! But this book is quite wonderful and I am very proud of it. If you have a small telescope or are thinking about getting one then check it out. In it I have chapters on using a small telescopes, stars, planets, how to take pictures with your telescope and of course a list with star charts of 101 objects to you can observe. Learn more and order it here.