OHM ESO sky

OrbitHangar

Addon Comments
Joined
Apr 9, 2008
Messages
3,832
Reaction score
13
Points
0

Author: rawash

Hi,
I've created an celestial sphere background from ESO (https:// www.eso.org/public/images/eso0932a/) to use with Orbiter 2016 & 2010-P1.
I feel it more realistic than stock ones.
There's some glitches and sometimes not aligned perfectly. Just try it.


Installation:

Just copy the content of this archive into your Orbiter installation folder,

Or copy the "MW.tex" file into your "Textures\csphere" folder and add the following line
ESO sky|csphere\MW
into the configuration file "bkgimage.cfg" of the folder "Config\Csphere"

Then activate it by selecting the entry ESO sky in the list of background in the "Visual effects" tab of the launcher.

In my installation, I use an intensity of 0.20 with D3D9Client + ENB Series for D3D9 (http://francophone.dansteph.com/?page=addon&id=173 )

Warning: it's an 124Mo texture

 

Credit: ESO/S. Brunier



DOWNLOAD
 

pappy2

Active member
Joined
May 3, 2012
Messages
398
Reaction score
36
Points
43
VERY VERY NICE

2016-09-17_174414.jpg
 

fred18

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Feb 2, 2012
Messages
1,666
Reaction score
100
Points
78
I've been wondering a lot about these: is it realistic? do astronauts see the milky way in that way from orbit? all the pix I saw from space is just a black sky with white stars, but even during nights on earth you can see the milky way, so I was wondering if you can see it that way from orbit
 

fausto

FOI SuperMod
Joined
Jul 13, 2008
Messages
797
Reaction score
2
Points
0
Location
Monza (Milan)
You can not see it from orbit. The reason is that your vision is blinded by multiple light sources. Main one is the Sun but when our star is behind Earth there are ISS or spacecraft interior lights switched on. I think you have to shut down all lights and let your eyes get used to darkness and THEN you'll be able to see Milky Way and things like that.. This is a very inusual situation on orbit and this is the reason why I consider background not so realistic (never used them)
The addon is well done, however :thumbup:
 

Kyle

Armchair Astronaut
Addon Developer
Joined
Mar 17, 2008
Messages
3,912
Reaction score
339
Points
123
Website
orbithangar.com
I'm an astrophotographer and I can answer this a bit.

No, the astronauts on the ISS do not see the Milky Way this way. Rather, they see a grey/white band going across the sky. The reason being is that your eye has a very small aperture thus only collects a small amount of light, and as such we cannot pick up any color like depicted in this addon with the naked eye. However, if you had a DSLR camera and took a 10-20 second exposure you'd roughly see something like this. With that said, I do think this is a very awesome addon from a visual standpoint. Worth the download!
 
Last edited:

NukeET

Gen 1:1
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Oct 16, 2007
Messages
1,035
Reaction score
93
Points
63
Location
UT_SLC
Website
sites.google.com
This may not be 100% accurate as far as what actually can be seen by the naked eye in Earth orbit, but, IMO, this looks far better and more realistic than the stock celestial.:cheers:
 

francisdrake

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
Joined
Mar 23, 2008
Messages
1,060
Reaction score
864
Points
128
Website
francisdrakex.deviantart.com
I have to thank rawash on this background! It is brilliant!
With the right setting it makes the sky interesting, without too much bright spots. Especially for deep space missions, it makes looking out of the window worthwhile. :)
 

francisdrake

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
Joined
Mar 23, 2008
Messages
1,060
Reaction score
864
Points
128
Website
francisdrakex.deviantart.com
I use ESO sky with an intensity of 0.4, so it does not stand out too bright against planet surfaces.

But, this will not generate an image like the one above. For a picture like this, you have to visit low Earth orbit in person. :)
 

romanasul

Member
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
301
Reaction score
0
Points
16
Location
Toronto
Thanks, what parameters do you use for the apparent magnitude? I have it set 0 to 6.5, exponential and 0.05. It seems pretty real, but I'm always looking to improve.
 

francisdrake

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
Joined
Mar 23, 2008
Messages
1,060
Reaction score
864
Points
128
Website
francisdrakex.deviantart.com
Apparent magnitude: 1.0 mapped to max brightness 1
Apparent magnitude: 7.0 mapped to min brightness 0.10
Magnitude brightness mapping: exponential

I think, this is pretty much the default setting.
Will try your setting as well, to see the difference.

picture.php

Sun and Milky Way rising above the horizon with the settings mentioned above,
default graphics client.
 
Last edited:

Yankee

Donator
Donator
Joined
May 18, 2012
Messages
12
Reaction score
1
Points
3
Preferred Pronouns
he/him
Slight issue when installing this mod on a case-sensitive filesystem:

Orbiter looks for the configuration file named bkgimage.cfg within ./Config/CSphere/ but installing this mod will put the configuration file in ./Config/Csphere/

I fixed this by just moving bkgimage.cfg from ./Config/Csphere/ to ./Config/CSphere/
 

N_Molson

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Mar 5, 2010
Messages
9,271
Reaction score
3,244
Points
203
Location
Toulouse
You can not see it from orbit. The reason is that your vision is blinded by multiple light sources. Main one is the Sun but when our star is behind Earth there are ISS or spacecraft interior lights switched on.

Definitively. Most pictures taken from space display no stars, only a deep black sky. It is even worse on the Apollo missions footage, as the lunar dust reflects a lot of light. Also spacecraft, spacesuits and station parts are usually white or shiny and are actually designed to be visible and reflect light (and heat).
 
Top