Skyglobe

The Skyglobe can show the locations of the sun and bright stars in the current sky, at any location on earth, any day of the year, and any time of the day quite accurately. You can use it to find out when and where the sun, a star, or a constellation rises and sets on a day, the location of them at a certain time of the day, or you can use it to know the location of the sun on the celestial sphere at a certain day of the year, or whether or not you'll be able to see a star at a certain location.

You can watch a video of how to use it here

You can watch a video of how to make it here

It can be used by astronomy lovers to plan stargazing or locate stars and constellations, or for budding scientists to learn and get familiarized with the constellations and the movements of the sun at different locations and dates.

The design is optimized for 3D printing, and requires no glue or screws. I did filament changes for the globes, horizon, meridian, and time wheels (only one extruder needed), and painted the stars according to the constellations.

• 20211026 Update: added a zip file containing photos of the star globe to show the details of the constellations (how I painted the stars). There is one top view of each hemisphere, and one at each quarter of the year (e.g. photo "N1" stands for northern hemisphere 1st quarter Jan - Mar). I tried to use different colors for nearby constellations (between yellow, blue, green, pink, orange), and if there's only one star in a constellation (when others are too dim to be included) I painted it grey.

You'll need to print 3 copies of "GlobePin", 2 copies of "SunInnerHalf", and 2 copies of "SunPin". Other parts only need 1 copy each.

The sun parts ("SunInnerHalf" and "SunOuter") and the time wheels ("TimeWheelN" and "TimeWheelS") need support with support blocker (screenshots of the blocker and the support in "support.zip"), and are recommended to be printed at 0.12mm layer height.

All other parts can be printed without support at any desired resolution (I used 0.2mm for everything).

Recommended 10-20% infill with 3 lines on the walls.

"GlobeTest.stl" is a small sample of the globe (around September). You can print it out to try filament changing or to test the current settings.

"EdgeTest.stl" is a very thin ring with the same diameter as the largest component (Horizon), so you may test if your printer can print the original size or need to scale it.

If any joints are too tight, you may wish to do some sanding; or if they are too loose, you can use a little bit of blu-tack or something similar to add some resistance.