As the title says, the sun and the moon appear very small and too distant in MSFS24. Reading a comment on here or Reddit someone mentioned that the sun and moon were too big in 2020, however, I preferred that. Now they look way too small.
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I believe 2024 is trying to simulate the “camera lens effect.” I like it personally.
What is needed is the ability to move the external camera on it’s X,Y,Z axis, so we can tailor that small sun and moon look by zooming however we want.
Thanks for the reply. I get that it may be more for the effect but I also tried to zoom in at max zoom and couldn’t see any detail. I actually went back to the eclipse from last year lol and it was just way too small to see. MSFS2020 may have been too big (not in my opinion) but I loved flying at night and seeing the moon, now it’s barely noticeable. If it’s not fixed, I’ll live, it’s cosmetic but it’s a nice touch and I hope at some point they address it.
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They were indeed way too big in FS2020. In FS2024 it looks appropriate to the chosen focal length (zooming in and out). I’d rather stick with the current realism than the oversized comic book look we had before.
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In 2024, when viewed from inside the cockpit, the moon looks like a smudge on the windscreen, honestly. I’d prefer not to have the lens effect unless I’m in camera mode outside of the aircraft.
actually they should be crescent in dawn/dusk phases… so simulate the size based on the lunar and solar phases… there are spectacular sunsets with the sun that looks like a huge orange… and periods of moon called “red” that is very large in waxing phase… I think it could be fixed… .let’s wait first for them to solve the ctd and big bugs… I voted!
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It’s been proven that they’re physically correct. Nothing to do with lens effects or anything else.
I can see the moon outside right now and reckon the one in the sim looks perfectly ok in comparison.
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In real life, they are surprisingly tiny. Some homework for you if you’re up for it: tonight when you see the moon in real life, hold out your hand at arms length - you can cover the entire moon with your pinky finger.
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FYI, there is a discussion topic about this here:
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The sun and moon are actually the correct size in 2024, and I greatly appreciated that change.
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It looks small in those pictures to me but most people are in agreeance that it’s accurate so sigh… i’ll defer to them.
If you played in VR they wouldn’t look small, they are tiny on 2D screens because everything is, just think how zoomed in you need to be to see instruments - yet irl this wouldn’t be needed
(and because the default external FoV is just a tad too zoomed out)
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I do 90% of my simming in VR. Nice to meet another VR enthusiast. I think I’m just used to the 2020 moon, I liked it. All good, it’s not a gamebreaker for me.
It’s interesting they tried to appeal to the gamer’s feelings in 2020. “I feel like the moon is too small”. So they made it bigger.
But in 2024 changed it to be physically accurate.
An even more exaggerated example is in Grand Theft Auto. The moon is huge, which is playing into the emotional response to how one perceives it. That game is supposed to be a parody of real life though.
It’s interesting that it looks too small even in VR. Does everything else look correctly sized? I know there have been problems with this in the past where the world scale was off in some situations.
I don’t know… I try not to mess with the scaling as that is said to affect frames lol. I think things look appropriate, maybe slightly smaller but I’m used to playing with this scale since 2020. Felt like XPlane-11 scale was a little bigger but not sure. Had an amazing flight tonight from Copenhagen to Istanbul in VR and after reading all people’s replies and posts, I looked closely at the near full moon, it still looks a bit small but definitely see what people are saying about the 3rd person perspective making everything look smaller. I’ll get over it eventually, I guess I’m just a gamer playing flight sims lol. With that said… can we please customize our copilots?! I wanna create 
Its realistic. FS2020 always bothered me. They were too big. IRL, both the moon and sun are about the same size in the sky (apparent size).
About half a degree. You can hide them behind your pinkie with an extended arm’s length. For trying to be a simulator, i don’t think adding an arcady feel to celestial objects is a good thing.
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YES. This is correct and I do agree.
On my current screens 16" as 27" this looks quite good for straight view for human sight condition in straight horizon view. But not up in the sky!
But as soon you get to an huge screen this will be mathematical absolute nonsense in perception.
On my small screens it looks appropriate and I cannot go against the simulation effects by now. It looks awesome for visual effects.
Perdon me that I do have only small ones which look good and quite real.
Of course in a human matter abiove the 45degrees of angle is this a bit weird.
The difference might be minor, but on a huge screen this is looking not so nice of course.
How to fix these celestials things in a flight SIM for eyeryone, this is getting very complex.
It might be possible to fix of course, but do not forget how humans perceive things in the sky on level as fairly above them.
I responded here because I do love really things up in the sky, and much more related to our evident visual experience in the night sky.
Clear skies I do wish to contemplate these beauty’s above as near to horizon.
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Yup, the absolute cosmic improbability of the sun being ~400x farther away than the moon, but the moon “disk” being ~400x smaller than the sun.
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It’s always gonna hard to mimic things in a game, however there isn’t much discreptancy in the game, realism wise. The whole sky is 180 degrees across (laterally), so the sun and moon needs to be 1/360th of that (0.5 degrees). There isn’t any other interpretations, regarding accuracy.
Human perception is the variable here, and as you say, pretty complex to make a one-size-fits-all. I haven’t tried the game in VR, but with that improved and life-like POV you get, i could imagine it actually looks realistic. That will always be hard to mimic on a computer screen infront of you. Thanks for your input 
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Go outside and measure the moon (not recommended with sun) against your thumb. It is actually small compared with the breadth of the sky. You eyes/brain make it appear larger because your brain disregards the full span when focused on the small object.