MFS as Planetarium

[mobeans10 198]

My understanding is that MFS2020 has a realistic night sky representation with correct positioning of the stars. If that is correct are there any payware/freeware mods that would place labels on the constellations ?  I find the night sky compelling at night, particularly in VR and it would be great to have my own planetarium to while away the long night flights.

[gallen144 12]

I’ve notices pretty good star patterns in the sim. Being interested in stargazing, l’ve set up a flight for time and location to get oriented on what I expect to see when I go outside. 

[bobcat999 8,489]

They do need to be more of a pinpoint light source though, apart from the planets of course.  The stars look a bit like faded blurry disks on my screen at the moment, and that is at 4k native resolution.  Maybe it is linked to the blurry ground lights of a night time.

[Flic1 994]

49 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

They do need to be more of a pinpoint light source though, apart from the planets of course.  The stars look a bit like faded blurry disks on my screen at the moment, and that is at 4k native resolution.  Maybe it is linked to the blurry ground lights of a night time.

Was also wondering if the blurry stars have to do with that 4k/widescreen bug.  Do you think planets are included?  I noticed the other evening in the sim that I did not see Venus hovering beneath the waxing crescent moon....

[Twenty6 693]

I was VFR in southern Texas and almost had a CFICK (Controlled Flight into Captain Kirk.) Waved as they went by.

[mobeans10 198]

I thought I read somewhere that the planets were modelled ?

[jcomm 5,953]

Yes !!!!

MFS fulfills my requests for night sky representation !  Well, is does have blurry light sources, but at least it has it, properly placed, and the Moon with very precise ephmeris ...

It also makes a ggod job reproducing dusk and dawn  / twilight effects.

 

[RobF2 150]

The rendition of the stars and moon phase is amazing, but its still surprisingly tricky at times recognising constellations where size is so much smaller than what you see naked eye in real life - along with the difficult of correctly portraying dynamic range of brightness the eye handles so well.

Milky way done well - to the extent you sometimes get city folk flying MSFS asking what the weird ghost smear thing they see at time is 🙂  🙂

Haven't focused on planets - will have to check it out - so many up at the moment shouldn't take long to see if Venus, Saturn, Jupiter in there.

[hansb57 493]

Next thing is someone is demanding a slider for it and wants a sextant hotfix.

[bobcat999 8,489]

11 minutes ago, hansb57 said:

Next thing is someone is demanding a slider for it and wants a sextant hotfix.

Don't joke about it, there is actually a sextant navigation training mod somewhere online.  

[Republic3D 1,232]

There was a lunar eclipse in May I believe, and I noticed it in the simulator by chance. I googled it and what do you know, it was accurate. I believe it was in South America somewhere.

But a planetarium / astronomical addon, payware or freeware would be very cool. Something that sharpened the stars, where you could toggle on and off names of stars and constellations etc. 

Any developers listening in? 

Edited October 15, 2021 by Republic3D

[mobeans10 198]

On 10/14/2021 at 3:12 PM, bobcat999 said:

They do need to be more of a pinpoint light source though, apart from the planets of course.  The stars look a bit like faded blurry disks on my screen at the moment, and that is at 4k native resolution.  Maybe it is linked to the blurry ground lights of a night time.

100% open XR scaling and 100% in game render scaling in VR on a G2 and they are pretty sharp to these old eyes🙂