@jcomm, the first part of your post is lost on me and I used to study astronomy. No matter, you were just joking.

Only when there is an eclipse can the accuracy of the sun and moon’s position and size be determined, hence my post.

Having witnessed a total solar eclipse back in 1973 they remain a strong interest to me. Given this one occurred over a large land mass I thought it worth asking about.

Might as well report it and let them put in the backlog.  They should at least get this right, given there have been special flights to chase and view eclipses in the past.

1 hour ago, marsman2020 said:

Might as well report it and let them put in the backlog.  They should at least get this right, given there have been special flights to chase and view eclipses in the past.

sure, I mean it probably won't be top of their list until 2048, but still...

5 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@jcomm, the first part of your post is lost on me and I used to study astronomy. No matter, you were just joking.

Only when there is an eclipse can the accuracy of the sun and moon’s position and size be determined, hence my post.

Having witnessed a total solar eclipse back in 1973 they remain a strong interest to me. Given this one occurred over a large land mass I thought it worth asking about.

Ray,

I was lucky to be able to see the 2017 total eclipse in central Tennessee. Had never seen a total eclipse before, and I have to say I found it to be quite an emotional experience. At the instant the sun was completely covered ALL birds quit chirping, and dogs in the area started barking - it was really weird...and quite dark.

The Sim doesn't support Full Total Eclipses they just resending Partial, also you'll notice even with partial eclipses the light doesn't change in the Sim.

8 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@jcomm, the first part of your post is lost on me and I used to study astronomy. No matter, you were just joking.

 

Eheh, it's an old story... People who are used to my posts about what matters to me in a flightsim are used to that "is the Moon with proper ephemeris properly represented ?..." query I usually make 🙂

Poor Austin must be so tired of reading my emails asking for proper Moon and Sun depiction in his sim 🙂

As with other details usually not dealt with in our civil sims, I am also sensible to stuff like non-isa weather models and so on... I'm not sure about MFS in this particular area, but combat sims like IL-2 Great Battles have always portrayed Moon, Sun and these effects a lot better / more precisely than our civil flight simulation platforms... 

11 hours ago, somiller said:

Ray,

I was lucky to be able to see the 2017 total eclipse in central Tennessee. Had never seen a total eclipse before, and I have to say I found it to be quite an emotional experience. At the instant the sun was completely covered ALL birds quit chirping, and dogs in the area started barking - it was really weird...and quite dark.

I think that unless you have witnessed one you don't realise how spectacular they are. Watching a video or even live streaming doesn't even come close. I was on a ship off the coast of Mauritania, west Africa when I observed the second  longest of the 20th century. Over 6 minutes of totality! Seeing the shadow rushing towards you and then the last bits of the sun disappearing is an awe inspiring sight as I'm sure you agree.

9 hours ago, MarcG said:

The Sim doesn't support Full Total Eclipses they just resending Partial, also you'll notice even with partial eclipses the light doesn't change in the Sim.

It doesn't need to support a total eclipse. It will happen naturally if the position of the moon and sun are in their correct positions. And I'm not expecting the light levels to reduce. It's a different sort of light to that close to sunrise / sunset anyway.

Edited December 15, 20205 yr by Ray Proudfoot
Second longest eclipse, not longest

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I think that unless you have witnessed one you don't realise how spectacular they are. Watching a video or even live streaming doesn't even come close. I was on a ship off the coast of Mauritania, west Africa when I observed the longest of the 20th century. Over 6 minutes of totality! Seeing the shadow rushing towards you and then the last bits of the sun disappearing is an awe inspiring sight as I'm sure you agree.

It doesn't need to support a total eclipse. It will happen naturally if the position of the moon and sun are in their correct positions. And I'm not expecting the light levels to reduce. It's a different sort of light to that close to sunrise / sunset anyway.

Well if it's supposed to be realistic of course it should support a Total Eclipse...as it is when you're in the Sim in a location that should be Total it's only shown as Partial, therefore it's not fully supported which is a shame. Any eclipse should reduce light levels, again not supported in the Sim so it's all a bit "meh" for me being an amateur astronomer, if you're gonna do it do it right!

@MarcG, I don't disagree but we don't know if the size of the moon and sun are accurate. If the moon is too small you'll never see the sun totally eclipsed.

I'm going to see what it looks like in P3Dv4. More shortly...

Well if it's not accurate then it needs to be 😆

A quick correction, Ray. The longest total solar eclipse visible in the 20th century was 1955 June 20 (7m8s). The 1973 June 30 eclipse was 7m3s.

On a side note, the maximum duration of the 2027 August 2 total solar eclipse will be 6m23s (over Egypt). This eclipse is in the same Saros series as those 1955 and 1973 eclipses. The Saros cycle is based on the fact that the Sun, Earth and Moon return to almost the same relative positions every 18 years and 11 days.

Edited December 15, 20205 yr by Christopher Low

3 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

A quick correction, Ray. The longest total solar eclipse visible in the 20th century was 1955 June 20 (7m8s). The 1973 June 30 eclipse was 7m3s.

Correct Christopher. Memory getting rusty. 😁

Anyway, here's how P3Dv4.5 depicts it. No sign of the moon whatsoever so in one respect MSFS is doing a better job.

14 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

You’re updated shots show reasonable accuracy, thanks. But people are saying the eclipse is visible thousands of miles away in the North Atlantic. That’s barmy.

The algorithm needed to calculate whether an eclipse will occur (somewhere on earth) on a particular date is relatively simple and straightforward. Back in the early 1980s, I had a book called “Celestial Basic” that had source code for all sorts of astronomical calculations written in the Apple II dialect of basic. As I recall, the “eclipse predictor” was about 30 lines of code.

But, calculating the exact path of the moon’s shadow on the earth in a given eclipse is much more complex, and probably beyond what Asobo would want to include in a flight simulator.

That said, I think the depiction of the nighttime sky in MSFS is the best I have ever seen in any sim in terms of the accuracy of the star placements and position at any date and time.

Quote

That said, I think the depiction of the nighttime sky in MSFS is the best I have ever seen in any sim in terms of the accuracy of the star placements and position at any date and time.

It is certainly light years beyond what is displayed in P3D, Jim. I only had to see one screenshot to realise that.

Edited December 15, 20205 yr by Christopher Low

@JRBarrett, I never realised it was so simple to calculate eclipses. Wow! I’m not expecting to see the moon’s shadow across the Earth but at the least I would expect to see the moon totally obscuring the sun. It does get reasonably close in MSFS and certainly better than P3D but it’s baffling why an eclipsed sun is visible thousands of miles outside the path. That isn’t realistic at all.