I have been slowly but steadily working at building a mobile Planetarium over the past year. I want to take it to the students of my community. The existing mobile Planetarium kits are inflatable ones that are noisy, flappy and rather expensive. I have based the frame of my dome using pvc pipes tied together using reusable zipties and figured out the projection surface using gores made out of EPS sheets. These steps I have completed.
I considered both multi-projector setup as well as single projector based on a fisheye lens and have decided to go with the later due to ease of use as well as cost. But getting the right lens in my corner of the world is proving to be near impossible. There is a specific lens that is suggested but the original manufacturers have no stock and the only used lens available on US eBay is proving impossible to order. So, that is where I am stuck at: twiddling my thumbs.
I considered both multi-projector setup as well as single projector based on a fisheye lens and have decided to go with the later due to ease of use as well as cost. But getting the right lens in my corner of the world is proving to be near impossible. There is a specific lens that is suggested but the original manufacturers have no stock and the only used lens available on US eBay is proving impossible to order. So, that is where I am stuck at: twiddling my thumbs.