XVR Star Ceilings - Create the Ultimate Star Ceiling
A short video showing my stunning and true realism XVR-625 glow in the dark stars.
Star Ceiling Overview
My XVR glow in the dark stars come on unique simple to use glowpatches. No Glue – No Paint – No Wires – No Mess – 90 minute setup for a full small ceiling area: Min 8sqm/80sq ft or Max 10sqm/100sq ft. All night performance and no artistic ability needed, just slide, then press!
Based on my most popular star kit of the past years the XVR-532 I have now been able to re-design a new version star kit with the same impressive qualities and better afterglow performance. I ended the XVR-532 in 2015 not because I wanted to update the stars but because producing them was not sustainable. My XVR-625 is still fully hand crafted but with better art methods that don’t come with the eye and shoulder strain of the past stars.
Stunning Animation Effect:
My XVR star ceiling art is the only indoor night sky available that has a true animation movement effect and this is not a barley visible shimmer like other star artists talk about or a cheesy twinkle wheel style effect like fibre optics provide it is clearly visible and highly accurate to the real stars. The stars themselves do not physically move it is an effect and is built into the animated depth stars to create perfect night sky accuracy. My video’s do capture this effect as somewhat aggressive but when you view your star ceiling in person it is more subtle and accurate to the real stars.
Glow in the Dark Stars are not Created Equal:
Hi! If you have come here not knowing my XVR star ceiling art from more than a decade then you are most likely wandering why my XVR-625 stars costs more compared to the basic glow in the dark stars elsewhere. The answer to that is very simple when you buy my stars you are not buying glow in the dark star stickers which is what they will look like to you but rather actual star ceiling artwork that has been created with years of experience (16+ years) and sale proven by time (Since 2007 – 16K+ Star Ceilings Setup Globally) to create true night sky realism.
Also as an artist that has a true passion for my star ceilings I have no interest whatsoever to make cheap, cheesy and zero realism glow in the dark stars for the sake of selling something and this type of “star” is already flooding the market. From the mass produced star stickers and mouldings to the other star artists hand made glow blobs none of them have an inherent capacity to provide true realism as a star ceiling as they are all too uniform in brightness and all stars are constantly visible, this is a failed formula.
My XVR-625 stars will provide a true star ceiling effect with stars that will pulse from the darkness of your room in a continuous cycle thruout the night all stars are not visible at all times that is not how I designed them to work. However in order to provide this critical effect these depth stars need to be faint at lights out and yet still faint 10 hours later and with glow in the dark as the power supply that is no simple task as it is on a constant down hill drop of luminance from the first second of lights out. So how do I achieve the required stability of my depth stars using glow in the dark as the driving force? how indeed?
No Artistic Ability Required:
Unlike other glow in the dark stars that come on large awkward sheets where you don’t know which star to use next my unique glowpatch format is very straight forward to use. Each proprietary glowpatch carries the stars in a unique configuration so you simply keep sliding stars direct from the glowpatch onto the ceiling without being concerned which star to take. Other than the few larger feature stars which you can pick and place you do not pick the micro stars up or handle them (Too small to handle anyway) you slide them direct to ceiling and press for a second. They will glide off the glowpatch with ease that is how I designed the patches to work, see the above video on how to use the glowpatches.
To install you spread the stars over an 8 to 10SQM area or 80 to 100sq ft. Don’t overthink the install just place the stars much thinner over the entire star ceiling area initially and have stars left on each of the two glowpatches. Then after viewing the initial stars in the dark room for 15 to 30 minutes see where you want to add a few more and then repeat. I have setup the star layout video below to clarify how simple it is to create your star ceiling for best effect.
I also have free download constellation maps below if you want to setup a few astronomically correct star constellations within your star ceiling. If setting up constellations use a mix of sizes from the bright range glowpatch but don’t use too many of these stars as they are critical to be in the random star field as well.
Virtually Invisible on White Ceilings:
Like all my past star versions the XVR-625 stars virtually disappear on white or very light coloured ceilings during regular daylight hours. There are a few larger feature stars in the new kit that you will see during the day if you look hard enough but even they do not stand out and they add awesome effect to the star ceiling range of depth. You can see the stars easy in my daytime images only as I have photographed them with a 200mm lens so those images are very close, sharp and clear and the same for my video’s. All of my stars are designed to work on any colour background and have been used in thousands of home theatre and media rooms over the past years but as with bedrooms can only be viewed while in darkness.
Zero Charging Required:
As my stars are glow in the dark based and have a very impressive afterglow longevity they do not require charging other than regular afternoon daylight, see the video below. They are however also very responsive to charging by any regular light source and can be fully charged in anything from seconds to a few minutes depending on the type of light you use. Many of the depth stars pulse from the darkness so don’t try to charge them aggressively to see all the stars working all the time that’s not how they are designed to work. If you use a high lumen lamp or blacklight (Which is not required) to highly charge the stars then it will take around 20 to 30 minutes for the depth stars to drop back to their correct operating level so turn that light off earlier than you view.
Self Adhesive Bases:
My glow in the dark stars are self adhesive so there is no glue or putty needed and are ready to slide direct to ceiling. Unlike fibre optics there is no need for ceiling excess, no cables to run, no power supplies to install and no holes to drill. Even if you go through all of that work to install fibre optics they have no capacity to provide any star ceiling realism whatsoever. There is also no mess like glow paint and the star ceiling outcome is always perfect without you needing to know how to paint a star ceiling.
Your Room Must Be Dark:
Due to the high star field depth that my glow in the dark stars will provide your room must be correctly dark while viewing or the stars will simply NOT be able to work correctly. Ideally you should not easily be able to make your way around the room while it is dark. Pitch black darkness is not required.
My Art
I have developed completely new art methods to create my intricate glow in the dark stars. I still start by making more than 600 blank micro canvases for each set but then the creation of each glow star is more controlled and precise than earlier methods. Each depth star micro canvas gets it’s own unique afterglow signature with a precise varied loading of glow crystals and this happens at a micron level. This is a very technical and complex task when you are continually hand setting loading levels on more than 300 micro bases. In the above video I show and describe just how effective my depth stars are at creating a stunning and animated star ceiling and something that no other star artist can even come close to matching but again the video is capturing this effect as over aggressive.
Also when it comes to the bright range stars the hand set formula of glow resin is not like any basic glow in the dark paint which is easy to apply but has no afterglow my resin is not only zero VOC & non radioactive but the unique formula gives the stars a massive 20+ hour afterglow.
Buy XVR Stars
United States Customers
Limited stock of my XVR-625 stars are currently available to be ordered from and fulfilled by Amazon at USD$87.00 and free shipping within the United States. You can click on the Amazon logo to go direct to the listing or copy the link and paste into any browser.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851Y38TW?ref=myi_title_dp
About Me
Since 2004 I started creating adult realistic glow in the dark stars and many of you especially in the United States will know my brand which is the XVR star ceiling. I ended my best star kit the XVR-532 several years ago due to hardship in producing it and have now been able to recreate a sustainable better version using completely new art methods with the XVR-625 glowpatches.
Contact Me: marcel@theglowpatch.com
Customer Feedback
Hi Marcel, I took these pictures around 5:00 o’clock in the evening EST. the sun was going down. i closed the shades in the room. the ceiling pictures i will have to take when its much darker at night. Thank you for your professional service and for providing such a exceptional product. the different size and smaller stars is really what takes the whole night stars come alive in a realistic scene. I can see why your so busy with orders…
I was not able to get good shots of the ceiling and walls together. The room looks amazing once it got dark here. My wife and I were laying on the floor admiring the depth and color of the stars. It was like star gazing in the middle of a clear sky at night but in the comfort of our own home. We could even set up a tent to camp in the room! 🙂 Thanks again. I will try and send pictures of the ceiling when I have more time. victor – USA
Hey Marcel, Stunning, absolutely amazing 🙂 Thank you very much for this awesome nightsky !!! I’ve attached a picture I took now that I’ve finished setting up the stars, maybe you want to put it on the website 🙂 Great job man! Daniel
Marcel, Last week, I was able to take the time to install my son’s star ceiling. And while it may take some time for my neck and shoulders to recover from sticking 2000 stars up there, it was completely worth the effort. I’ve attached a photo (a one-minute exposure since they’re so realistically faint), but you know better than anyone that photographs can’t begin to do justice to the real effect of lying under these stars. Drawing his heavy curtains and making the room pitch black thrusts us into a very realistic night sky experience. As you can see, I’ve positioned many of the brightest stars to show some of the most prominent northern hemisphere constellations, and I even went so far as to try to preserve some important spatial relationships where possible. I want the ceiling to be as educational as it is beautiful, and I think, due to your outstanding product, it does an excellent job at being both! Thanks so much for creating these amazing stars. You’ve made for one very happy customer, and a 4-year-old who adores them and will be thrilled to have these in his bedroom for a very long time. The stars are everything your website promises: realistic, long-lasting, and easy to install. They really are the best thing available on the market…by light years! Cheers! David – USA
Marcel, I should have responded sooner. I just wanted to say that your product was everything that it claimed to be, and probably more. When my Granddaughters arrived for their summer visit they were in awe of the night sky I had put up in their room. Thank you for making this project a spectacular success. David. Texas – USA
XVR Stars (an authentic customer love story)
Hi Marcel,
I have quite the story when it comes to your stars and I thought I would share it with you just so you know how much they mean to me. I met a girl at a New Years Eve Party on Dec 31st 2014. This party was at a friend’s land out in the middle of the woods of nowhere Jamestown, SC. At this party I met a girl through a mutual friend.
We hit it off immediately and talked for hours just the two of us around the camp fire. We kissed at mid night and afterwards we went off away from everyone else and gazed at the stars. It was so dark and quite and we could see the stars perfectly. We both had in common that we loved looking up at the night sky and watching for shooting stars. Before she left I got her phone number and we were texting the very next day. We saw each other two more times, before she went back to college (Clemson University) for her 2nd semester.
We texted, snap chatted and spoke on the phone daily while she was in Clemson and I was back home in Charleston. We were both counting down the days until she would be back home and we would get to spend more time together again. I kept thinking about what I was going to do when she got back and ways to really surprise her and be romantic. And then I remembered seeing your stars at a friend’s house way back when.
I ordered them and put them up in my room ( I was living in a house with two roommates on Sullivan’s Island- a beach in Charleston, SC at the time). When she finally got home from college for Summer vacation, we went on a date, went for a walk on the beach and then went back to my place. We were in my room, (just talking she’s a classy girl) and then I asked her what she would think, if we could lay back in my bed and look up at the sky right now from right here. She said that would be amazing but impossible. I told her my ceiling was actually like a convertible car and all I had to do was click a button and the ceiling would come off and we would be looking up into the night sky. She said there’s no way and kept telling me to stop messing around. I told her to close her eyes and I would make it happen and finally she did.
When her eyes were closed I got up, shut off all the lights, closed my blackout curtain and hurried back onto my bed. Then I told her to open them…
We are happily married now.
We are about to buy our first house together in January and I’ve had another trick up my sleeve for quite some time. I’m going to secretly buy another set of those stars and set them up in either the master bedroom or maybe in the room that will one day be a nursery and relive that night all over again. I just want to say thank you for making those stars, and please don’t stop.
Sincerely,
Dakota
Marcel, It’s been over a year now and the stars are still amazing! I recently bought a Sony A7s that I was able to capture a glimpse of the stars but you’re right in doesn’t quite bring them to life in the way they appear to flicker to the naked eye. We are thrilled by them! They are the best investment we’ve made in our daughters room yet. Looking forward to purchasing some more for my sitting room. You’re awesome keep them coming! Sincerely, Austin C- Monroe, NC, USA
FAQ
Question: Not all the stars are glowing the same on the glowpatches I received?
Answer: Most of my detailed work goes into the faint range depth stars which provide the depth and animation to the star ceiling but until they are installed and viewed correctly in the dark room they will look like they have very little glow which is exactly how they should look. You can see the charging video about this.
Just fit some of the stars as my instructions show and then view the stars in the dark room for at least 15 minutes. Installing the stars is the only way you will see what they actually do and after you see the perfection from the first few installed you will be very happy to create your full star ceiling area.
Question: Are the stars more than one glow color?
Answer: My stars are varied hues of blue/green towards blue however when viewed in correct darkness they will look like white stars with a slight blue hue representing the true night sky to perfection. The camera does picture the stars higher blue only because they had to be photographed while lit with a special type of UV to capture them the way you will see them. Getting video is even worse the stars do not capture the way you will see them so I had to go through very complex post editing to have the video show what you will actually see with your eyes in a correctly dark room. Again the stars in the video are over blue due to requiring UV for the capture.
Question: Should the stars have a certain distance from each other?
Answer: In general keeping a minimum couple of inches distance from any bright range stars to the depth stars is fine and there is no maximum distance requirement. Also when you cluster up a few stars in various area’s of your star field to create mini clusters don’t pack too many stars in say one or two square feet but rather have a spread of at least a few square feet. Also set these clusters to have an irregular random shape which will look far more natural and organic. You can set small clusters and they do look awesome but to set them up correct take a look at the video below in the templates section about adding these.
Question: I cannot see a clear animation effect?
Answer: Once the threshold of interfering light in any given room goes above the lower values of light that the depth stars emit they no longer can provide this effect but will continue to add star ceiling depth. You need to have the room at least dark enough so that you cannot make your way around the room without finding it difficult. Also in order to see the animated side of the stars you must be panning slowly within the darkness of the star ceiling and you will see the depth stars pulsing from this darkness they are not aggressively visible and this is why they work. The more still you become and the more you focus on faint stars when you spot them the more visible this effect becomes. Also be sure to keep around a 6 foot minimum viewing distance between your eyes and the nearest stars.
Question: How many stars are in each XVR-625 Star Kit?
Answer: The official star count for each XVR-625 star kit is 625 stars and this is the star count as I designed the prototype glowpatches. However the production XVR-625s will count to the high 600s as I add extra stars to each glowpatch to cover any misplaced stars while installing and also in some cases it can be beneficial to remove a few stars after the install to strategically alter the star ceiling view and fine tune.
Question: Does my room need to be dark?
Answer: Yes room darkness is important while viewing the stars. You should not easily be able to make your way around the room without the aid of some type of light. Any level of room brightness above this will start to cancel out some intricate depth stars and then the more light you have the less effect you are going to get. You do not require pitch black darkness for the XVR-625 stars.
Question: Should I paint my ceiling black?
Answer: The stars are designed for white or very light ceilings so on dark ceilings they will stand out during daylight hours as they are whitish in day colour. They will work on any colour background and you will get a deeper black space effect on a dark background but a light background provides a higher star aura. Both ways the effect is stunning so it really won’t matter to the actual star ceiling in the dark just the daytime look will vary.
Question: My stars are perfect before fully installing should I add more?
Answer: You are not going to see the correct star field complexity as it was designed unless you fit all the stars into around an 8SQM or 80Sq. Ft area or slightly larger and should complete the install. I would put half of the remaining stars up first and then the next night or after viewing in the dark for at least 30 minutes add the final stars. Only until you have done this will you see the organic clusters and constellation style placements that will naturally occur. when you do these extra placements be sure to continue adding across the entire star ceiling area and do not over apply in one section of your star ceiling.
Question: After I have fitted some stars they don’t seem to have a strong grip to the ceiling?
Answer: You should never try and feel the grip of a star after fitting it as it will build it’s grip over time. You should just push each star firmly to the ceiling for half a second which will activate the adhesive and then just leave them to build their grip over the next few days.
Question: Are the XVR ceiling stars safe for a Nursery?
Answer: Yes provided the ceiling is dry and dust free when you fit the stars they will stay up. You may have the odd star fall now and again over time but they are so small they are not a chocking hazard. The few feature stars have a tiny bit of size and if they are a concern for you smear a very small amount of clear silicone, craft glue, mod podge, elmers etc over those few after fitting to lock them in place as I mention in the install video.
Question: My ceiling does not look like black space and my stars are not very bright?
Answer: The brightness of your stars and the blackness effect of your ceiling will be determined by the darkness of your room. If you don’t have a perfect star ceiling you simply have too much interfering light in your room: Street light, Moon Light, Air Conditioning L.E.D light hitting the ceiling, bright L.E.D clocks, Computers, Optical Mice, Stereos, other glow products etc. You need to find the interfering light and remove it or obscure it. If outside light is the problem you can fit block out curtains or if you have a lot of gadgets place some black tape over all the LEDs.
Question: I have been told I have to pay import charges to collect my item is this normal?
Answer: As stated at the cart you are responsible for your own Country Import Duties and Taxes if any. I do not control what your Government charges you on entry nor do I profit from their tax.
Question: If I am renting can I reuse the stars if I move?
Answer: No, my stars can only be fitted once and you would never get them to work a second time even if you managed to glue them because they would not be in the correct order they are supplied to you in a way that will give you a perfect night sky effect. Also in most cases the stars will remove clean within a few months of fitting but this depends on the quality of the painted surface so it is not possible to guarantee. If you are renting you could make portable star posters by placing the stars onto large laminated white paper sheets and then just hang them up.
Question: How long will the stars last?
Answer: There is no set end time for my glow in the dark stars they have the potential to work endlessly so provided your ceiling is clean and dry and the paint is not flaky or peeling when you fit them they should continue glowing for decades.
Question: Will the stars work on very high ceilings?
Answer: Yes however room darkness will be more important in order to see the very fine detail and movement stars at distance. Also it will take more effort and time to put the stars up as the ceiling is harder to reach.
Question: Will your star kits work in theater rooms?
Answer: Many customers use my bedroom stars in theatre rooms but they will only work while the room is dark. They enjoy the star ceiling before or after movies, while listening to music, talking, relaxing etc.
Question: Do your stars work on textured ceilings?
Answer: Many of my US and Canadian customers have textured/popcorn ceilings and tell me they have no problem as the stars are small enough to fit on flat spots all over the ceiling. You may have to glue or silicone the few largest stars if you don’t have large enough flat spots for them. Vacuum the ceiling before fitting the stars to ensure a good surface for adhesion.
Also textured ceilings can be a little challenging because the stars disappear as you fit them so be sure to keep moving not to over apply in one area. It would be better to have a thinner placement with left over stars to start with and then add more after seeing the initial star ceiling effect in the dark which is how I recommend they are fitted anyway. It may also be helpful to fit the stars at dusk with a regular room light turned on in a separate room just for low level light as this will make it easier to spot where you are applying. However this will only work for the bright range stars and not the depth stars.
Question: Do you have to move your head to get the effect of movement?
Answer: No it is the exact opposite the more still you are the more the animation is defined. However as I state above you do require a good level of room darkness while viewing for this aspect of the star ceiling.
Question: Can I put stars on the walls as well as the ceiling?
Answer: You need to be careful adding stars to opposing faces as you risk actually reducing the effect. This is because any bright stars facing depth stars will cancel them out to an extent so more is not better. You could try a few at a time on one wall and make sure to view overnight before adding any more.
Question: Will the star ceiling light effect your sleep?
Answer: No, The star light is very soft rated in millicandelas or fractions of a single lumen and will not penetrate your eye lids, your eye lids are like an on/off switch and once they are closed the light is gone.
Constellation Templates
I setup star constellation maps years back for customers that want to add a few constellations to their awesome star ceiling. You can see the Dipper and Crux here in the star constellation howto video. I have PDF files for each of the below constellations which you can take to your local print shop and have them print your constellation maps onto A1 size paper or you can down size the file to A2 (Do not go smaller).
Use stars from the bright range glowpatch and place a star into each position that your star map shows. You will see different size circles on some maps just fit larger or smaller stars in these positions based on the image. Have the room correctly dark and enjoy your astronomically correct star constellations within your star field!
Note: Use no more than a few of the bright range stars for star constellations as they are very important to also be placed random thru out your star ceiling. If setting up constellations place those stars up before any other stars and then keep some distance clear between the constellation stars and the remaining random bright range stars as this will make your constellations more defined. If using all stars as random just follow my video instructions at the top of this page.
