Night Sky

[SimPilot221 2]

Is there a way to strip the sky of the unrealistically great amount of stars shown? Thanks.

[Chock 17,769]

They are not really that unrealistic to be honest. Stood on the ground in a city or town, where there is a good deal of light pollution, it's true you won't see that many, but up in the skies or even down on the ground in more remote areas where there is less light pollution, you absolutely can see a lot of stars. If you get out into the country and look up, it really is quite beautiful. I used to love doing that when I lived in Cornwall, you would be surprised how many stars you can see on a clear night when you are somewhere like that.

[DEHowie 269]

1 hour ago, SimPilot221 said:

Is there a way to strip the sky of the unrealistically great amount of stars shown? Thanks.

Unrealistic?

Have you ever been in an aeroplane at night?

 

If anything P3D skies lacking stars...the Envtex night sky is far better.

 

[RudiJG1 172]

Check out this freeware, Autostar: https://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=Autostar&CatID=root&Go=Search

It works with P3D as well and is one of my must-haves. It'll accomplish what you want.

[gboz 157]

2 hours ago, SimPilot221 said:

Is there a way to strip the sky of the unrealistically great amount of stars shown? Thanks.

You can edit the stars.dat file in the main p3d folder.

gb.

[SimPilot221 2]

14 hours ago, DEHowie said:

Unrealistic?

Have you ever been in an aeroplane at night?

 

If anything P3D skies lacking stars...the Envtex night sky is far better.

 

Now now - no need to become rude.

 

And I'm sure there are places in the world where this effect is visible, however everywhere else it's not as common.

[Chris Bell 165]

lol

default Sim comes with 9k star database,
here's Sim with Stargazer Project, a 250k Star database enhancement!

 

[hamish7777 1]

I like the look of that Chris. Always loved the Stars at night.

Hopefully not long to wait...

 

 

Hamish

[btacon 1,772]

1 hour ago, SimPilot221 said:

Now now - no need to become rude.

 

And I'm sure there are places in the world where this effect is visible, however everywhere else it's not as common.

Hmmm as a former pilot IRL I would suggest that at any altitude above 1000 AGL, the ground based light pollution is no longer impactful meaning if the sky is clear, the stars are too.  MANY, MANY of them.

i agree with Chris Bell, we need more stars, not less for "As Real as it Gets"

-Braun

[DEHowie 269]

On 25/07/2017 at 2:22 AM, SimPilot221 said:

Now now - no need to become rude.

 

And I'm sure there are places in the world where this effect is visible, however everywhere else it's not as common.

Actually its a serious question not being rude.

If you have never sat up front in a darkened cockpit at night you will never know just how many stars are visible to the eye at night.

Once your vision adapts the sky is covered and an amazing sight.

Not being rude i was asking a serious question as if you havnt its understandable if you have then you need to turn the lights down more!

[Flic1 969]

That picture of the Airbus cockpit and stars is not legit IMO.  A side hobby of mine is night sky photography and in order to get stars to show up like that in a pic requires about a 20 second exposure or more.  You can actually see the stars in the pic appear to be a small line (smudge) which is what happens in these type of exposure shots due to the earth rotation....this one possibly being more than 20 seconds...maybe 30.  A 20+ second exposure from that position would make the cockpit entirely too bright so some photographic trickery was involved here. I'd guess that they took (or used) a ground based photo and photo-shopped it into the pic of the cockpit. Plus, you would never get a star shot like that from a moving cockpit...hard enough on the still ground!!  Naked eye viewing would depend on how bright the cockpit lighting is as your eyes need to be super dark adapted to see stars anything like that....especially to see the Orion nebula which is visible in that pic..

[Flic1 969]

On ‎7‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 9:44 PM, DEHowie said:

Unrealistic?

Have you ever been in an aeroplane at night?

 

 

The problem with night sky pictures is that they are done with exposures so you will see things your naked eye cannot and will never see.  The pics are neat but not real (in the sense of what your naked eye would see). I very much doubt someone (maybe they or you do??) has the ability to get a 20-30 second exposure that requires the camera to be perfectly still from an airplane (and from behind a dirty windscreen!!) in order to see the Milky Way like it shows in the first pic (I can't shoot it that good from my backyard with a nice camera!!).  Creative artwork for sure...but not something you can see with your eyes from a cockpit or passenger window.  One of the coolest sites I've seen though was the Hale-Bopp comet from FL 410 back in 1997....but still not as dramatic as all the pics you see of it...which were all timed exposures.

[mtrainer 136]

Those that have seen the night sky with young eyes from the deep country will never forget it.

Mark

 

[vgbaron 3,486]

2 hours ago, mtrainer said:

Those that have seen the night sky with young eyes from the deep country will never forget it.

Mark

 

So very well put Mark. Those who live in the city with its ambient glow have no idea how full a clear sky is.

Vic

[DEHowie 269]

9 hours ago, Flic1 said:

The problem with night sky pictures is that they are done with exposures so you will see things your naked eye cannot and will never see.  The pics are neat but not real (in the sense of what your naked eye would see). I very much doubt someone (maybe they or you do??) has the ability to get a 20-30 second exposure that requires the camera to be perfectly still from an airplane (and from behind a dirty windscreen!!) in order to see the Milky Way like it shows in the first pic (I can't shoot it that good from my backyard with a nice camera!!).  Creative artwork for sure...but not something you can see with your eyes from a cockpit or passenger window.  One of the coolest sites I've seen though was the Hale-Bopp comet from FL 410 back in 1997....but still not as dramatic as all the pics you see of it...which were all timed exposures.

I guess thats the difference between people who have been on the flight deck and seen it.

The ohotos have been taken to portay EXACTLY what is visible from the flight deck at altitude.

Standing in yiur back yard at sea level with city lights filling the sky with ambient light is so far removed from what you can see from a flight deck at night as to basically be another world.

Cabin crew are continually stunned by how clear the Milky Way and the thousands of stars you can see once your eyes adjust from the bright even when dimmed cabin lights.

At sea level you can see far fewer stars than at even 35000'.

So no fancy tricks to use long exposures its a 5 second exposure for the night sky and edited to show you what every pilot sees every night. The human eye is far more efficient at gatheringblight than a 2.8 Fstop lens so you need that amount to gather what the eye can see. If you ran the exposure up to 20-30 seconds you could fill in the entire Milky way but the objective of this exposure is to show what we see everyday on a moonless night.

Go for a country drive sit in the darest place you can find for 30 minutes and turn your eyes skyward and you will see a fraction of what you can see at altitude without the thickest part of the atmosphere blocking out the weakest of visible stars.