There is a partial eclipse in the northern hemisphere today ( and, being based in the UK, naturally its overcast so any chance of seeing this is gone… 
) but I was wondering if this has been modelled in the Sim… so a quick check flying far north over Hudson Bay and…
Iam waiting at BGQQ because there should be a total eclipse.
Skipped time forward: no eclipse
Ok, skies cleared for a bit in the UK … this is what it actually looks like when viewed from my back garden using a spotting scope with a piece of paper next to the eyepeice (not looking directly through the eyepeice for the obvious reasons…)
Hmm, I set up a flight and moved the time back a bit and couldn’t see anything whatsoever in a place where there was an annular eclipse at the time (around the Canada/Greenland border).
I did get some OK pictures IRL, but it actually looked better through eclipse glasses than with a 14x zoom digital camera.
You have to turn off light bloom and lens flares to see it properly in the sim.
It is my understanding from previously testing this in the sim, that the visual effect of the moon moving across sun is shown in the sim… however when I did the test for a full eclipse, even though it was visible in the sim as happening, there was no reduction in daylight as a result of the eclipse.
I checked today in a region that was supposed to have full sun coverage and, only partial coverage was displayed. Like the picture above.
Seems like a generic model or, there is an issue with the computations.
It was the same partial coverage in my area (that was supposed to be partial) than one I knew was to get full sun obstruction.
Interestingly when I tested the full eclipse it was in the UAE area of the middle east, which is possibly closer to the equator that where you may have tested today, where the eclipse seemed to be on a more northerly path this time. I have no idea if that has any affect on the ‘reliability’ of the model or it’s calculations.
That’s a plausible explanation.
I checked in Canada, which is not exactly equator-style 
Still, the northern part of Quebec had full sun obstruction according to official maps, which was not properly reproduced in MSFS.
I did go and have a look at the area that would have afforded views o the ring of fire effect of the near full eclipse today but the effect was almost the same as I’d seen elsewhere.
To be honest I’m not going to complain about this. I guess the point here is that its was nice to see, you get some degree of immersive experience and that’s just what I want. Its quite a lot of additional work to start adding in a full range of solar system modelling and visual effect (hey, lets model in the starlink constellations and the ISS…) but its good to see that there is something here to get taste of the effect. Obviously everyone wants parasitic drag modelled to the nth degree and then some before we get a fully accurate solar eclipse
This eclipse was annular, not total. This occurs because the Moon is too far away and thus too small to cover the entire sun. Even with the sun 95% obscured, a pronounced darkening of the sky will not occur. Perhaps with the sim set to August 21, 2017 and set for an appropriate time on a path between the Pacific Northwest and the coast of South Carolina, you might get to see a total eclipse.
