Hi Rusty
Nothing wrong with your light circuit from what I can see other than the size of the hole where the light shines out.
The trick with creating an artificial star is getting the correct size hole in the aluminium foil. We are talking of a very small hole in the micron size.
The method of doing this is to cut out say 10 to 20 small sheets of aluminium foil (say 5cm x 5cm) and stack them together and place the stack on a hard surface like a table. Find the centre of the stack and use a very fine dressmaker needle and press it gently into the stack of aluminium foil (you don’t need to drill through all the way, just press it into the stack)
Once you have completed this task you will need to go through the stack and find a sheet with a small enough hole to do the job.
My recommendation is to start with the bottom most sheet and work towards the top. Hold each piece of aluminium foil one at a time up to a light and look for any light passing through the pinhole you created. General speaking you will go thorough some with no pinhole, once you detect light passing thorough a piece of aluminium foil, choose the second or third sheet after the initial one this should be the correct size for the artificial star.
Careful place the choosen piece of aluminium foil over the light circuit you create and centre and tape edges down. If all goes well you have an artificial star of the correct size. Remember you can repeat the above procedure as many times you like until you get something you’re happy with.
Not to sure how you went about looking at the artificial star on your first attempt. But you have adequate distance to bring the light into focus. Could you give me some details of what eyepiece/accessories you used on your initial attempt.
Make sure you follow the instructions on the link I provided when collimating
http://www.astrophoto.fr/collim.html
Hang in there.
Cheers Anthony