What’s revolutionary about the [Clay Paky] Alpha Spot HPE 1500 is its patent-pending Animated Star gobo. This is a new effect that consists of a secondary iris effect that is located about halfway up in the focal point of the lighting instrument so it focuses outside of the normal iris range. When you adjust the focus point of the light beam on this position, the designer gets a circular beam chopping effect, but instead of making the light beam larger and smaller like a normal iris, it seems to break the image apart and collapse it as it shrinks. You can actually feather a gobo pattern to make it look soft around the edges but sharp in the center. The built-in effects the light has for this feature are quite sparkling and add a new dimension to hard-edged fixtures.
—Nook Schoenfeld, from “Road Test,” PLSN, April 2011
