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Associated Content: Stars So Bright

by Terry Rimmer, November 6, 2007

It’s not every day that someone gets their own personal planetarium. But Rick O’Hara makes bedtime magical and educational.

Like Harry Potters’ enchanted ceiling at the Hogwarts school, Rick’s ceilings look just like the stars outside and come out when they do. His planetariums are so accurate and realistic that several libraries use them to conduct stargazing classes. His equipment is so precise that if you give him the exact date, time and location of your child’s birth, he can give you the sky exactly as it looked at that moment.

The Wichita Falls, TX artist and galaxy expert builds visions of night skies on bedroom ceilings for people who like to go to sleep under the stars. This is an art form Rick has been developing for the last seven years. “I first fell in love with astronomy when I was an undergrad at Cornell,” says Rick. “I sat in on some of Carl Sagan’s lectures and just found it fascinating.”

O’Hara had been the CFO of Carter Aviation before founding Stars So Bright. He left the firm when his wife Shefali was diagnosed with cancer. He didn’t want to tear her away from her support system to pursue other opportunities. His wife (who is co-owner of Stars So Bright) suggested he turn his undergraduate passion into a business.

Now he tries to inspire the same passion for astronomy in others with his business, the planetariums he’s donated to several libraries and the free Starfinders’ Seminars he conducts. “There is nothing so magical as a child’s gasp of wonder when we turn out the lights and the ordinary ceiling transforms itself into an ocean of stars,” says O’Hara. “It’s very fulfilling.”

According to O’Hara, “My planetariums are totally invisible when the lights are on. Your room looks like it always did, but at night, when you turn the lights off, the stars come out. All the constellations are accurate and in their proper place.”

“Rick was experimenting with this technique 7 years ago when we were living in Colorado,” explains Shefali. “We created planetariums in our own home. When we moved to Texas, friends who saw it asked us to do it for them. Children just love it, and so do adults. Even our cat got excited the first time she saw it. We’re still a young company and really open to clients’ suggestions, so we’ll do custom designs for them. One client wanted a desert landscape and another wanted flaming red dragons. Libraries just love how accurate the planetariums are.”

Rick’s planetariums are so accurate because of a special projection system he’s imported from Japan. That’s one major difference between his planetariums and the stick-on stars you can get in hobby stores or the fiber kits you can buy. There are other advantages to a Stars So Bright planetarium. Unlike stick-on stars or fiber optic ceilings, O’Hara’s stars really look like stars. They twinkle gently and, according to people who have experienced them, they really make you feel like you are outdoors. One couple said it was like being on a campout, but without the mosquitoes. For a large room such as a master bedroom or living room, O’Hara creates literally thousands of stars and dozens of constellations.

“Stick on stars look fake and fall off,” explains O’Hara. “Fiber involves a lot of construction work – drilling holes in your ceiling or installing a dropdown ceiling, plus it’s really expensive and not very accurate. My planetariums can be created on any type of ceiling, even popcorn or acoustic tile, and I can also put stars on your walls to create a mountain valley effect where you’re completely surrounded by stars.”

In addition to stars and constellations, O’Hara creates meteors and the Milky Way. He invented a way to paint multi-colored meteors which look remarkably like real meteors you see in the Brownfield and Leonid meteor showers. They change colors in the first few minutes after you turn out the lights from red to green to ice blue. He has also developed techniques to photograph his planetariums and has become an amateur astrophotographer as a result. The photos on his website attest to his success.

You can see Stars So Bright planetariums in several public libraries in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, including the Grapevine, Hurst, Denton and Wichita Falls libraries. The Irving and Plano public libraries will also be getting planetariums soon. The planetarium in the Grapevine library is in their Story Room and includes constellations from the Northern Sky such as Orion, Ursa Major, Gemini, Draco the Dragon and Cassiopeia. Stars So Bright can also do the constellations of the Southern hemisphere. The Hurst library’s planetarium includes a large meteor shower and the one in Denton, in the Emily Fowler Central Library, covers not only the ceiling but all four walls. The planetarium in the Wichita Falls Public Library features a long, glowing Milky Way and the constellations of both the summer and winter sky.

The best way to see O’Hara’s planetariums is to attend one of his free Starfinders’ Seminars that are regularly held at these libraries. During these sessions, O’Hara starts by showing everyone how to identify some of the well known constellations and how to use a star chart to find them. Then, he hands out star charts and astronomer’s flashlights to everyone, turns out the lights, and everyone practices finding the constellations in the planetarium so they can then go outdoors and find the real constellations on their own. Rick hopes this will inspire families to go stargazing together.

Rick’s goal is to make his planetariums as realistic and beautiful as possible. Because of the high quality paint he uses, the stars will glow all night long. To answer any other questions you may have, please visit his website or contact him.

 

Dallas Morning News: Man’s Painted Planetarium are Really Out of this World

by Marissa Alanis, Staff Writer, Thursday, August 4, 2005

 With a red light pointing at the sky, Rick O’Hara outlines the shapes of constellations that glow and sometimes twinkle in a dark room at the Grapevine Library. 

“Usually, when we turn the lights off, the kids go ‘Wow’”, he said. 

During his Star Finder Seminar, Mr. O’Hara points out how the constellation of Draco wraps its tail like a dragon around the Little Dipper. And the Cancer constellation resembles the pincers of a crab.

 The planetarium is the handiwork of Mr. O’Hara, a business executive-turned-painter. When the lights are off, the twinkle and glow of the stars, the Milky Way galaxy and meteor showers appear.

 He designs the planetariums using a projector that displays constellations onto the ceiling. He creates the stars with high-quality imported paint.

 “After going to business school, I never thought I’d take a job climbing ladders,” he says, laughing.

 O’Hara left his job as the CFO of an aviation company when his wife, Shefali, got cancer because he wanted to look after her and spend time together. “I started doing this so we could have a little bit of a life together,” he explains of his new career creating personal planetariums for clients.

 His lifelong fascination with constellations began one starry night while he was climbing the White Mountains in New Hampshire as part of a prep school class.

 “I’ll never forget that,” he said. “If you get up on the mountains, you feel close to heaven, and see millions of stars. It’s just stunning.”

 O’Hara even sat in on several astronomy classes taught by the renowned astronomer Carl Sagan at Cornell University, where he earned his undergraduate degree.

 Mr. O’Hara first used his bedroom to experiment with planetarium techniques in 1997. Eventually, he created the night sky in his bathroom and living room as well.

 He started designing personal planetariums in peoples’ homes and, last year, he and his wife decided to bring planetariums – free of charge – into libraries for children to enjoy.

 ”We talked to the libraries and we thought they’d get a kick out of it,” O’Hara says.

 City libraries featuring his planetarium handiwork include Hurst, Grapevine, Denton and Irving. Mr. O’Hara has become somewhat of a teacher, delivering presentations about stargazing to children at the libraries.

 Hurst librarian Susan Andrews said the planetarium is lovely.

 “And I think it’s surprising, and it seems to have depth,” Ms. Andrews said. “You feel like you’re really looking at the stars, and you’re not seeing painted lights or light bulbs.”

 Beverly Kirkendall, the library manager of youth services at the Hurst library said children and adults have a different appreciation for the planetarium.

 “Kids think it’s a cool special effect, but adults, I think, see it as bringing nature indoors,” she said. “That’s how they remember the sky when they were growing up or how they thought it should look growing up in the city.”

 

 The Grapevine Courier: Out of This World

by Charla McKenna, Feature Writer, Friday, June 17, 2005

Rick O’Hara has people seeing the stars. Sure, they’re made from high luminosity imported paint that he special orders, but they’re stars all the same. His hand-painted planetarium, complete with constellations, shooting stars and galaxies, is available for viewing in the Children’s Room, at the Grapevine Public Library – but only when the lights are out.

O’Hara uses special paint that is invisible in the light. Because of this, he’s able to paint planetariums on ceilings and walls without disturbing the surrounding décor. His unobtrusive stars are making their way into libraries around town – Hurst, Denton and Irving, to name a few – and the most interesting part is that he’s sharing the celestial fun for free.

He not only installs the planetariums in the libraries free of charge, he donates his time by teaching people how to stargaze. On Saturday at 3 pm, O’Hara will introduce stargazers to constellations, and explain how to find them using star charts.

O’Hara recently started creating personal planetariums in peoples’ homes. He uses a star chart and projector to paint an accurate representation of the night sky for the exact time and date of his client’s choosing.

“I can paint the sky with the constellations in the exact position they were when they [customers] were born,” O’Hara said. “I can make it accurate to within 5 minutes.”

In addition to creating planetariums for private homes, he’s donated several to libraries.

“As you can tell,” O’Hara said, “I enjoy doing this – especially if there are kids and adults who get a kick out of it and get excited enough to go out and see the real stars.”

O’Hara has always had an interest in astronomy. “I got my undergraduate degree from Cornell and Carl Sagan was a professor there.”

While O’Hara was interested in business, he sat in on a few of Sagan’s seminars. Years later, while living in Estes Park, Colorado, he enjoyed watching the stars. Then he had to move to Denver and, because of the light and pollution, “the stars all disappeared.” At that point, he started experimenting with paints, so that he could recreate the stars in his own home.

“It takes a high luminosity paint to create realistic stars,” he explains. “The cheaper paints just don’t look real. Fortunately, it doesn’t take very much of it.”

Friends and family would see what he had done, and they wanted it in their homes, too. Even so, it remained a hobby until his life changed course when his wife Shefali, was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer.

“It has an 85 percent mortality rate within the first year,” O’Hara said. “We went all out – doing research for both the regular medical thing, and doing all the alternatives. We also prayed a lot. She quit her job and started watching I Love Lucy and we went on strict diets and we beat it. She just finished her radiation a few weeks ago, and we just got the test results back, and it’s pretty much normal.”

The couple had been married for eight years, and between his change of profession and her cancer, their lives today are very different than the couple had planned.

“So here I am,” O’Hara said, “I never thought I’d go to business school so I could climb ladders with a paint brush.” But painting skies has its rewards that are seldom found in the boardroom. “It’s really fun to see the expressions on kids’ faces when they see this.”

Grapevine children’s librarian Leigh Burnham intends to have O’Hara back on a monthly basis. “He’ll come again on July 14,” she said. “We’ll do a program in August as well. I think it’s great for us. I love it and the kids really enjoy it.”

Burnham and the other Grapevine librarians were curious as to how as to how O’Hara managed to get the invisible paint onto the ceiling accurately. “He was in there in the dark on a 12 foot ladder. It’s a mystery to us how he did it.”

 

Wichita Falls Times Record News: Painting Sky with Stars

by Lana Sweeten-Shults, February 5, 2005

Starry, starry night. Paint your palette blue and gray… or so the song goes.

But Rick O’Hara paints his starry nights a little differently: with high luminosity paint.

O’Hara paints personal planetariums for anyone starry-eyed enough to do a little interior stargazing. He has completed about two dozen such planetariums in the bedrooms and living rooms of mostly friends and family.

But O’Hara’s latest star-dappled creation – a children’s planetarium that the couple donated to the Wichita Falls Public Library – is likely his most heavenly coup. It will be unveiled today during the O’Haras’ first Starfinder Seminar.

In case you need a clearer night’s picture of what the O’Haras do, just stop by the library’s story room for children. Close the door, shut off the lights, then wait a minute for your night vision to kick in, and twinkle, twinkle little star, or, rather a few hundred of them. Using high luminosity paint that glows in the dark, Rick O’Hara hand painted the night sky, its stars and constellations right onto the ceiling and walls of the room.

“We do everything so it’s astronomically accurate,” he explained. “We can do shooting stars, and the Milky Way, too.”

A hazy strip in the center represents the Milky Way and separates the ceiling into the summer night sky and the winter night sky. With a star chart in hand and a miniature astronomers’ flashlight to see the charts in the dark, children will be able to locate the North Star and the constellations jewelling the sky around it, from the W-shaped Cassiopeia to the Little Dipper, Cancer the Crab and Draco the Dragon. They might also notice a meteor shower or two on the story room walls that change from orange to green to white, thanks to another kind of luminous paint.

The O’Haras decided to start their own personal planetarium business after a couple of setbacks in their lives. The couple moved to Wichita Falls from Colorado so Rick could take a job as CFO of a small aviation firm. However, when Shefali was diagnosed with cancer, he felt he couldn’t work the long hours required and still take care of his wife. He also didn’t want to relocate away from their support system of church and friends.

“I first started playing around with this several years ago in Denver,” Rick said. “Then Shefali said, ‘Why don’t you think of doing this as a business?’”

Rick, in the two dozen planetariums he has completed so far, uses special high luminosity paint that glows for 24 hours. This is the type of paint he’s used to add a planetarium to their own bedroom.

“This is part of my therapy,” Shefali said of indoor stargazing. “I turn the lights off and listen to soft music and look at the stars. It really relaxes me.”

The O’Haras donated the planetarium in the children’s story room at the library with hopes of sparking children’s interest in astronomy, and in learning, too.

According to Eric Terry, the children’s librarian at the Wichita Falls Public Library, it’s a treat to show children the planetarium for the first time. They usually give a gleeful outburst. “Now, when we do our story time,” Terry says, “After the story is finished they’ll chime, ‘the stars, the stars’, letting me know they want me to turn the lights off. It’s very popular.”

“People really do enjoy it,” confirms Shefali, whether the palette is blue and gray or, in the O’Haras’ case, just highly luminous.

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