Patent ID: 8087810

Claim:
A panel for displaying a star field, comprising: a plurality of shooting star light pipes, each shooting star light pipe including an input and an output, the output of said each shooting star light pipe being disposed in a corresponding aperture through the panel, wherein the shooting star light pipes are aligned in the panel for sequential illumination to simulate a shooting star through the star field on a front face of the panel; a controller that executes a pre-stored program, an output of the controller comprising M parallel digital data signals; M accumulators each receiving a respective data signal from the controller, each accumulator accumulating an electrical charge whenever its respective data signal is true and discharging whenever its respective data signal is false; and M amplifiers each for sensing an electrical charge in a respective accumulator and energizing a respective LED according to the electrical charge, said respective LED illuminating the input of a respective shooting star light pipe when energized; wherein the pre-stored program causes the controller to sequentially pulse true each of the M data signals to give an effect of a fast traveling point of light, on the front face of the panel, using the plurality of shooting star light pipes; and wherein the discharge time of each of the M accumulators is suitably greater than the charge time of the respective accumulator for adding a visually discernible tapering-off tail to the effect of the traveling point of light that corresponds to the shooting star.