If you want painting advice, I don't think I would look here. I've been in the business for over thirty years, and everytime I post a suggestion, some know-it-all DIY'er tells me I'm wrong. That said, the answer to your question is, use a 3/4 inch nap roller and flat paint. Also, use an adjustable extention pole with a roller screen inside a five gallon bucket. And finally, keep pressue on the side of the roller that isin the unpainted area, then the side with less pressure erases the roller marks. Sure an airless is good for ceilings, but the learnng curve on trigger pull is quite severe and may have you rolling behind the sprayer.
Obviously, I'm the world's worst ceiling painter. I use good paint (Sherwin Williams), stir it well, apply it with the right equipment (3/8" nap roller), keep a wet edge, and the ceiling still ends up with roller marks despite my best efforts to apply an even paint film.
I might rightly question your characterization for _I_ am the world's worst ceiling painter. Sometimes the worst wall painter too. And let's not even mention trim...
Ceilings are the worst IMHO because the seeing is often impossible there since normal room lighting is meant to illuminate everything _but_ the ceiling. Intense glancing light will make it much easier to see where you are working although it can quickly turn even a large room into a sauna. A 500W quartz work light on a stand placing it above head level works for me.
Another thing I've found in decades of botched ceiling painting is that there is often a layer of unseen filth there. Start painting and it mixes with the emulsion and intensifies the streaking. A high-powered shop vacuum and an extension brush can remove layers of grunge that, because they were so even, were scarcely visible.
My last invitation to disaster is ceiling history. Last Autumn I painted the white ceiling in my 40-year-old home's living/dining room: a 25X13 foot expanse of white swirled skim coat plaster. Using good-quality paint and proper lighting I went over the area using the proper equipment and technique only to find that the paint disappeared like it was never applied. Applied a second coat - same thing. Went back to the store to buy more paint and finally the third coat started to act somewhat "normal". It appears in hindsight as if that old ceiling might never have been primed or painted in all its history.
Have fun! In my next life I'm going to find a way to avoid paint entirely or be rich enough to pay someone else to apply it for me.
A nap roller might qualify as the "right equipment", but if you want to avoid the problem simply buy or rent an airless sprayer. Once you do a job with one, you'll never go back to a roller. They are sooo much faster and easier..
Severe? Only if you don't have two brain cells to rub together. My dad has owned a painting company for 40+ years, and even as a small kid I used to operate his rigs without any problem.
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