The Pizza Box Hârnic Planetarium
by Sierra Dawn and Jason Holt

Are you finding it difficult to learn the Hârnic constellations using only the star charts in HârnWorld? Not able to clearly envision Susso? This is easy to remedy using only materials readily accessible in the average college dorm room. We refer, of course, to the Pizza Box Hârnic Planetarium.

To begin, collect five or six pizza boxes (so that you have extra material in case of mistakes), several 500 g plastic yogurt cups, a large flashlight with very fresh batteries (D is a recommendable size), duct tape, scissors, thin cardboard (of the sort slipped into new Western shirts to make them hold their shape in the package), a large quantity of sharp metal objects in four gauges (we recommend small nails, two gauges of sewing needle, and pins), and a photocopy of the Star Charts page (Kethira 3) from HârnWorld.

PBHP 101: The Basic Pizza Box Hârnic Planetarium
Cut out the Northern Sky from the Star Charts photocopy. Lay it in the middle of a pizza box lid. (Cut off the box itself.) Poke pins and needles of the appropriate gauges through the stars on the chart and the pizza box below. You don't need a needle for every star, but be sure you leave enough in to prevent the copy from shifting before you are quite done making all the stars. Shining the flashlight at an angle through the resulting holes in the pizza box will project Hârnic constellations onto your ceiling.

Fig. 1. The dimensions of the hole in the mask (image above is shown at reduced size) are: 10.1 cm from North to South, 10.1 cm from East to West, 10 cm from Northwest to Southeast and 11.4 cm across the widest point, a little south of East and West.

PBHP 204: Technical Improvements, Notes, and Astronomical Considerations
Hârn lies between the 40th and 50th parallels. This means that some southern constellations will also be visible. A sailor on the southern coast of Hârn will be able to see stars located up to 50 degrees south of the celestial equator. If you want a perfect planetarium, you can map them star for star into position. However, there is another method which is quick and fairly accurate. Cut out the Southern sky. Lay it against the pinned Northern sky, lining up a line of longitude. Pin the constellations there and some of the minor stars, then roll the southern sky to line up with the next line of longitude, pinning minor stars as you roll. Take care not to distort the major constellations. The result is "teeth" at each line of longitude. Most players, however, will not notice or complain about this. Remember, stars near the horizon are hard to see because the flashlight loses strength... and there are probably hills and trees in the way.
Absolutely vital to obtaining a good projection is the elimination of light leak. Also, it's tiring to hold the flashlight and difficult to keep it steady. Both these problems can be satisfactorily solved by constructing a free-standing, enclosed planetarium unit. Set two pizza boxes on their sides so that they form a hollow square. Duct tape one of the seams, carefully masking any areas of light leak with the thin cardboard. Duct tape thin cardboard masking to one side of the open seam and pin it in place on the other side. Take the bottom part of another pizza box, and cut a hole large enough to comfortably encompass all the star pin pricks in its center. Lay it on top of the open pizza box square for a lid. Duct tape one seam. Along the other three sides, duct tape a masking skirt of thin cardboard. Spending lots of time in a dark room with a flashlight during these steps will pay off later. If you have put together the planetarium cleverly and carefully and with foresight, it is possible to unpin a single piece of masking and then fold the entire contraption to about the size of two closed pizza boxes and slip it behind your bookcase when not in use.
Making the flashlight stand is very important and difficult and will require some experimentation. Unless the flashlight is at just the right angle (about 30 degrees from vertical), you will get projections of the bulb element and other artifacts, not clear stars. Find out what this angle is, then cut a hole for the base of the flashlight in a large yogurt cup. If you are successful, the flashlight, with its base in the hole and top resting on the lip of the of the cup, will be at the correct angle. When you've achieved this, you can adjust the focal length by placing the yogurt cup on a desired number of books inside the pizza box frame. Lay the basic sheet of stars over the hole in the frame, and you'll be amazed at how much your projection is improved.
If you assume that Hârn rotates and revolves the same direction as Earth, write "This side up" on the same side of your punctured pizza box as you laid the photocopy. (If you assume the opposite, write it on the other side, of course.) It's also a good idea to circle the constellations in pencil, clearly mark Zexus, and label the zodiac constellations with their first letter, just for reference.
Of course, not all the stars are visible all the time. To deal with this, you need to cut an oval in a piece of thin cardboard and use the oval as a mask. (Fig. 1) The cardinal directions are marked on the oval, and it swings around the sky with Zexus continually in the cross-hairs. Start with the mask just covering the constellation the sun is in, then shift it in the direction of the arrow as the night progresses. At midnight, the constellation opposite the sunsign should be clearly visible in the south, and once you get back to the sunsign, day will be breaking. If your players are on Daylight Savings Time, make the appropriate adjustments.
Real sticklers for realism can make a second mask with trees, hills, Coranan, etc. to lay over the oval. Another possibility is to make separate little strips of hills and the like, which can be arranged independently. The draw-back here is extending set up time.
Speaking of realism, everyone knows that without a special dispensation from Save-K'nor, one never gets a chance to study stars on Hârn anyway. Pill bottle cotton makes excellent clouds.