I have been flying FSX only for the last month and went on a night flight yesterday. I set up a clear night (no clouds, unlimited vis) however, the night time sky was so poor in quality that it was just not worth flying anymore. Very hard to explain (don't know how to show an image) but there were so many "cloud like" appearances in the sky which distorted the entire skyline. There was no uniform blackness at all. These "cloud like" images were generally oriented in an oblique direction going from the horizon all the way up. Even when I added real clouds, they were still there. I did a search here but could not find anything along this line. I am flying Vista 32, Quad core, with an NVidia GTX 280 video card. If I cannot get rid of these, I don't believe I will be able to enjoy any flying at night. Thanks for any help. Al

I guess we need an imageIn your flight, press PRT SCR on the key board. Close or minimize FSX. Open Paint. press CTRL+V. Save as jpg(default). It will save to your Pictures folder. When you add a post to AVSIM, there is an area to add attachments.Bob

I have been flying FSX only for the last month and went on a night flight yesterday. I set up a clear night (no clouds, unlimited vis) however, the night time sky was so poor in quality that it was just not worth flying anymore. Very hard to explain (don't know how to show an image) but there were so many "cloud like" appearances in the sky which distorted the entire skyline. There was no uniform blackness at all. These "cloud like" images were generally oriented in an oblique direction going from the horizon all the way up. Even when I added real clouds, they were still there. I did a search here but could not find anything along this line. I am flying Vista 32, Quad core, with an NVidia GTX 280 video card. If I cannot get rid of these, I don't believe I will be able to enjoy any flying at night. Thanks for any help. Al

What are your in game image displaysettings, i.e: 32x1920x1200 or 16x1920x1200 etc?

What are your in game image displaysettings, i.e: 32x1920x1200 or 16x1920x1200 etc?

Will try to get a saved picture tonight. My settings are 32x1920x1200

many "cloud like" appearances in the sky which distorted the entire skyline. There was no uniform blackness at all. These "cloud like" images were generally oriented in an oblique direction going from the horizon all the way up. Even when I added real clouds, they were still there.

I wonder if its the Milky Way?

On the topic of night time, the FSX night sky is not nearly dark enough, on a moonless night over the atlantic or pacific at FL36 it's pitch black with no horizon at all.Paul

I guess we need an imageIn your flight, press PRT SCR on the key board. Close or minimize FSX. Open Paint. press CTRL+V. Save as jpg(default). It will save to your Pictures folder. When you add a post to AVSIM, there is an area to add attachments.Bob

Here are some pics. Weather is set to clear sky and unlimited visibilityThank you Bob for the instruction in how to do these pics.Would love to have a perfectly black sky.Appreciate any suggestions in how to correct this problem.I also fly FS2004 and I do not see these kinds of things.This one shows an unusual blue image above the horizonThis one shows the "cloud like" image starting at the horizon and going obliquely off into the skyThis next one shows a little higher view in the sky of the one just above This last one is out west showing multiple blue-green bands parallel to the horizonThanks for any help, Al

The second pic looks like what is supposed to be the Milky Way. I get that in mine to. Not a great looking rendition of the Milky Way imho. On the other pics it was hard to tell what it is, but I noticed something also.

The second pic looks like what is supposed to be the Milky Way. I get that in mine to. Not a great looking rendition of the Milky Way imho. On the other pics it was hard to tell what it is, but I noticed something also.

Yes, it's the Milky Way. The last time I lived in a non light-polluted area (15 years ago), it was common to see this.The other horizontal banding is due to using an LCD monitor. Try hooking up a CRT and you won't notice it.

Ok I can definitely say that the last set of pics was the milky way, and it is a pretty good rendition of what it looks like in real life. The other pics with the lighter blue banding, is what you would see in the air at night probably before midnight, because if you fly west, you will still have rays of light from the sun lighting up the sky, the only problem is the colorblending at night isn't as good as daytime so it might look unusual to an unsuspecting user.

Thanks to all who replied. Appreciate your input.I had no idea that was the Milky Way. Personally would prefer it not there.Curious - is there anyway to get rid of it? Is it located in a file somewhere that could be deleted?I don't believe this was in FS2004.Right now, don't understand why I can no longer see my original images above.The sky part of the images are no longer visible????Al

Well, this is interesting. On two different computers I see the ground in some of your pics, but the skies are completely black. I have CRTs. Do LCDs cause some of this?Bob

Well, this is interesting. On two different computers I see the ground in some of your pics, but the skies are completely black. I have CRTs. Do LCDs cause some of this?Bob

Bob: Yes very interesting since I reviewed all the pics last night when I put them there. I saw them after the file was posted. But now, as you also confrim, I can only see some ground and everything else is black.Al

I'll chip in my two cents here.I was always dissatisfied with the FSX nighttime rendering on my crt. The ground was just too dark and blurry. Note I'm not referring to a mipmapping issue. Daytime looked great on my PC.I recently went to a 1080P widescreen LCD and night is alive. Bright looking cities- more or less as they appear at night. It's a huge leap for me in appearance. Performance is also a minor hit from 1280x1024.(very minor on my q6600, Radeon 3870 PC)I've got over 200 hours of night flying time in light aircraft, so I have spent plenty of time looking at the ground from the air.

I'll chip in my two cents here.I was always dissatisfied with the FSX nighttime rendering on my crt. The ground was just too dark and blurry. Note I'm not referring to a mipmapping issue. Daytime looked great on my PC.I recently went to a 1080P widescreen LCD and night is alive. Bright looking cities- more or less as they appear at night. It's a huge leap for me in appearance. Performance is also a minor hit from 1280x1024.(very minor on my q6600, Radeon 3870 PC)I've got over 200 hours of night flying time in light aircraft, so I have spent plenty of time looking at the ground from the air.

I also think it depends on the video card. I know people have been saying since the nVidia Geforce 8 series nVidia's image quality has improved, but ATi still has better colour, so if you do not have the right color settings, your night time may look bad. It is also very hard to get a good impression of night on monitors that have a lot of glare, nonglare LCDs can help a lot. Also adjusting brightness, contrast, and color on the monitor can help. To get a real impression don't set your monitor on 100% brightness unless it is very dark.