Keith Armour and the Rebel Legion proved they are a force for good by paying a visit to a children's hospice on Monday.

Children being treated at Rachel House Hospice in Kinross were left in awe at the sight of a Jedi master, X-wing pilot, stormtrooper and wookie.

The centre, run by Children's Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS), welcomes the rebels every year as part of their fundraising drive from the Capital Sci Fi Con, held in Edinburgh each February.

Mr Armour, in the orange X-Wing pilot costume, has organised the visits and fundraising for the last three years.

Much like the films, which have been around since 1977, the appeal still does not wear off.

He told STV News: "Every time we've been to the hospice we've been welcomed with open arms and the kids absolutely love it.

"They've been absolutely fantastic and obviously after the first visit that I did, when I met the families and the staff, I was totally blown away by how amazing they were.

"I knew I was definitely going to raise some serious money for them here."

He added: "There's a photo that I've posted with a little lad in the yellow T-shirt called Mackenzie and he's a massive Star Wars fan.

"As soon as we walked in his eyes were like saucers and he was singing the Imperial March song as soon as I walked in, which was quite funny."

After Mr Armour lost his mother to the rare autoimmune disorder Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome, he began raising money for the intensive therapy unit at St John's Hospital in Livingston three years ago.

He then organised a toy drop-off at Rachel House, with more donated last year, before going on to organise the convention which operates on a non-profit basis with all funds going to CHAS.

Mr Armour said: "Obviously after that I decided I wanted to do something bigger and that's where the idea for Capital Sci Fi Con came from.

"It was to raise more money for CHAS and we raised just under £38,000 in February. That was just from our efforts last year."

He added: "But because the convention takes so much organising I couldn't do that this year. So we decided that we would just go up with the costume characters and do a visit to see the families.

"Instead of doing the toy drop I gave all the families and staff passes to the event in February. We invited them all along last year as well and met all the movie guests that we had there. They had a really good time."

The convention, held at Meadowbank Sports Centre, brings together stars of the screen big and small along with other memorabilia and a chance for film fans to show off their own costumes.

Mr Armour and the organisers now aim to make a £50,000 donation to the hospice next year and are already ahead on their efforts through other means.

Thursday's release of Rogue One, a new film charting the early attempts to destroy the Death Star set before the original Star Wars trilogy, gives the team another opportunity to meet and greet fans for a good cause.

They will be attending Cineworld at Fountain Park in Edinburgh on Wednesday evening ahead of the movie's midnight release, which has three showings in different packed out screens.

Keith said: "We'll be there from 6pm right through until the first showing at five past midnight. We're looking forward to it, especially after doing it for The Force Awakens last year.

"What we do is we go out to all the different shopping centres to promote the event so we hand out flyers to people and they can get photos taken with all the different costumed characters.

"We raised about £7500 from the shopping centres, then some other money came from Scottish Widows for their staff who came and volunteered at the weekend of the event, then all the other money came from the actual event itself."

He added: "Since August we started promoting again for 2017's event on February 18 and 19, and we've already beaten last year's figure, currently sitting about £8000.

"Plus we've still got the release of Rogue One at Fountain Park, where we'll be collecting, and then two other promos at the Gyle and Livingston centres."

The hospice is one of two in Scotland that focus primarily on children, with the other being Robin House in Balloch, West Dunbartonshire.

Laura Campbell, community fundraiser at CHAS, said: "Keith and the rest of the Capital Sci-Fi Con crew are an extraordinary group of fundraisers - not only are they on target to raise £50,000 for CHAS through Capital Sci-Fi Con 2017 but they also make the time to visit families at Rachel House in full Star Wars cast costumes.

"The visit was brilliant and gave families at the hospice the chance to meet Chewie, a stormtrooper and a Jedi. They all bring so much fun and energy, which creates a real buzz around the hospice.

"As soon as they all walk in in their costumes, the children's faces just light up - they're so convincing that the children think that they're the real thing.

"At CHAS, we put a huge emphasis on creating experiences for families to spend quality time together to enable them to make treasured memories - and the Star Wars cast visit will certainly be one that they will never forget."

For more information on the convention, see below.