Night sky too extreme in VR

Bug Reporting Hub Virtual Reality (VR)
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4

There is already a topic about “Stars too close” which is related somehow. In effect, the stars seem to be just a projected texture. This explains their look and feel, and probably the “too close” factor if the dome they are projected onto is just too small. This also explains why star magnitude is not rendering correctly, because it is just a pre-painted texture with static stars. At the same time, your topic is different because it is not about “too close” but about “magnitude”, and for this, it would require the stars are not painted on a texture but painted as individual light dots.

For these reasons, I’ll copy my remarks from the other topic:

  • FS2020 is using a texture projected on a dome.
    .
    It is clear you can’t have enough pixels in the projected texture otherwise it will be massive a texture size. This approach to night stars is typical to games.

  • Because it is a texture it doesn’t take in account magnitude either.
    .
    In a simulator like X-Plane stars are point lights and the magnitude is simulated as well, so that you only see what you’d see IRL depending on the ambient luminosity too… To each his own.

For those wondering, and Asobo, the XP11 file with the data is plain text:
X-Plane11\Resources\default data\earth_astro.data

It has about 25000 stars in the form:
Ascension Declination Magnitude [name]

The file starts like this:

I

740 Version - build 1795, metadata StarXP740 Copyright © 2004, Robin A. Peel (robinp@mindspring.com).   This data is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program ("AptNavGNULicence.txt"); if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.  

 6.752569 -16.713143  -1.43 Sirius
 6.399192 -52.695718  -0.62 Canopus
14.261208  19.187270  -0.10 Arcturus
14.661361 -60.835147   0.01 Rigel Kentaurus A
18.615607  38.782993   0.03 Vega
 5.242298  -8.201639   0.18 Rigel
 7.655149   5.227508   0.38 Procyon
 1.628542 -57.236660   0.45 Achernar
 5.919525   7.407036   0.45 Betelgeuse
14.063735 -60.372978   0.61 Hadar
 5.278138  45.999029   0.71 Capella
12.443317 -63.099056   0.77 Acrux
19.846301   8.867385   0.77 Altair
 4.598667  16.509762   0.85 Aldebaran
 5.277851  46.006709   0.96  
13.419890 -11.161245   0.98 Spica
16.490130 -26.431946   1.06 Antares
 7.755379  28.026310   1.14 Pollux
22.960785 -29.621837   1.16 Fomalhaut
12.795366 -59.688732   1.25  
20.690532  45.280334   1.25 Deneb
14.660942 -60.839471   1.34 Rigel Kentaurus B
10.139572  11.967195   1.36 Regulus
 6.977096 -28.972089   1.50 Adhara
12.519425 -57.112569   1.59  
17.560146 -37.103748   1.62 Shaula
 5.418852   6.349735   1.64 Bellatrix
 5.438194  28.607873   1.65 Alnath
 9.220067 -69.717472   1.67  
 5.603559  -1.201917   1.69 Alnilam
 5.679312  -1.942578   1.74 Alnitak
22.137188 -46.960616   1.74 Alnair
 8.158876 -47.336612   1.75  
12.900454  55.959843   1.76 Alioth
 3.405375  49.861243   1.79 Mirphak
18.402874 -34.384315   1.79 Kaus Australis
11.062177  61.751119   1.81 Dubhe
 7.139857 -26.393208   1.83  
13.792374  49.313303   1.85 Alkaid
 8.375240 -59.509538   1.86  
17.621979 -42.997822   1.86  
 5.992158  44.947435   1.90  
16.811074 -69.027635   1.91  
 6.628528  16.399415   1.93 Alhena
 7.576668  31.888636   1.94 Castor
20.427458 -56.734881   1.94  
 2.529743  89.264138   1.97 Polaris
 6.378330 -17.955917   1.98  
 9.459792  -8.658683   1.99 Alphard
 2.119524  23.462777   2.00 Hamal
10.332823  19.841860   2.01 Algieba
 8.745055 -54.708568   2.02  
 0.726452 -17.986684   2.04 Diphda
 1.162166  35.620830   2.05 Mirach
18.921088 -26.296594   2.05 Nunki
14.111479 -36.368696   2.06  
 0.139769  29.090828   2.07 Alpheratz
 5.795941 -9.669602   2.07 Saiph
14.845110  74.155476   2.07 Kochab
22.711093 -46.884566   2.07  
17.582224  12.560576   2.08 Rasalhague
 3.136147  40.955651   2.09 Algol
 2.064978  42.329848   2.10

format is: Astronomical data (astro.dat) File Format Specification | X-Plane Developer

You can even edit this file in any text editor and add your own geometric figures… I never thought about this one until now :joy:

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