I too am an amateur astronomer, I don't have any fancy tracking gear like you do Bill (I have an Orion XT6).

 

Personally I think the Milkyway looks horrible in the simulator!

 

(Excellent photo BTW!!)

Never seen that FSX Milky Way, at night me too busy looking at the female co-pilot, hehe!

 

Off topic: No. 1 thing to get rid off in FSX: The stupid shore wave effect, I´ve killed those with every new install, pronto...

I agree the Milky Way is too bright in FSX.  I am in South Florida and I have never seen the Milky Way in real life, yet FSX has it depicted as if I were on the moon. Kindly share the dds please.

 

edit: Just realized the OP posted this in 2011...better off just doing this myself.

altstiff, on 25 Nov 2013 - 1:58 PM, said:

I too am an amateur astronomer, I don't have any fancy tracking gear like you do Bill (I have an Orion XT6).

 

Personally I think the Milkyway looks horrible in the simulator!

 

(Excellent photo BTW!!)

 

Thanks for the compliment, saw from your blog you have some nice Astrophotos also!

Love Clear Left too!

 

Suprised the FSX Milkyway is so disliked, oh well...

Guess we need an FSX Milkyway Addon!! Please, someone develope this!!

 

B.

Guess we need an FSX Milkyway Addon!! Please, someone develope this!!

 

A new milky way is just a texture edit away, so why would anyone need a full blown add-on for it?

 

 

For stars, there's autostarx.zip right here in the library.

Pretty sure the milky way has moved a bit in the 2 years this post has been up  :-)

Never saw Milky Way on night flights. I didn't knew that texture even exists.

Ha, funny that this has resurfaced.  I saw the post back in 2011 and thought the milky way looked pretty good in FSX.  When I am up north in Michigan I can see it really clearly and on nights when it is straight above, it dominates the night sky. It shifts, of course, and depending on the time of year it can parallel the horizon and not be noticeable.  But when it does arc across the sky, you can't miss it and it wouldn't look right to just get rid of it. It may be too bright in the sim when on the ground at a busy airport...but when up at 25K it would be remiss not to show it.

 

--Don

 

 

Hi cmpbellsjc,
 
if you are reading, could you kindly send me your modified "MilkyWay_lm.dds" ?
 
This is me email: biassalaregis[]hotmail.com
 
I would like to try your solution tonight if possible
 
Thanks
Regis

 

Sorry Regis, but as far as I am aware, we are not allowed to redistribute core FSX files. However, the instructions are posted in my open post. You can just substitute GIMP or PS, and use the built in MS Paint. It will only take you a few minutes to make the new version, just back up your original in case you mess it up.

 

 

 

I agree the Milky Way is too bright in FSX.  I am in South Florida and I have never seen the Milky Way in real life, yet FSX has it depicted as if I were on the moon. Kindly share the dds please.
 
edit: Just realized the OP posted this in 2011...better off just doing this myself.

 

It's ok that its an old post, I read the forums like 20 times a day, lol. Can't send though as mentioned above.

 

 

 

Ha, funny that this has resurfaced.

 

Yeah, I was surprised when I visited the forums today and saw this old thread I started had resurfaced. Even funnier though is that I had to search for this thread when I built my new rig back in July and couldn't remember where that darn texture file was located so I could move it from my old computer to my new one.

 

 

 

As an Amateur Astronomer and Astrophotographer, I am sad at your attempt to remove the Milkyway from FSX!

 

 

Ok, Maybe you just don't like the FSX version..

 

I used to be into astronomy when I was a teen. Had a nice telescope and would spend hours looking at Jupiter, the nebula in Orion's belt, the Andromeda galaxy and stuff like that. I was really into it until I moved to a city that was way to bright and hard to even see the brightest stars. Even though I dont have a telescope any longer I am still a sky watcher. I like to go running in the evenings around 10:30 at night and find myself looking at the sky more than looking where I am running. Of course I am also busy watching the a/c overhead that are enroute to KDAL and KDFW. Kind of like killing three birds with one stone, get my exercise, look at the constellations and a/c spot all at the same time.

 

As far as the FSX MW goes, I just dont like the way it displays in FSX, however its beautiful in real life if you are somewhere dark enough to actually see it. In FSX it just looks like a weird smudge plastered to the sky. The first time I noticed it in FSX I though it was something on the glass of the plane I was flying. The I panned out of the a/c and thought it was my screen. Then I realized that it was the Milky Way. Too me a few hours to track down the texture and fix it. I would have just deleted it or renamed it, but didnt want to see if there would be any consequence of having FSX constantly looking for a missing texture, so I just made it a transparent texture. If I spent some quality time with the editing software, I might be able to find a way to keep it and just tone it down a bit so it looked better.

Ha, funny that this has resurfaced.  I saw the post back in 2011 and thought the milky way looked pretty good in FSX.  When I am up north in Michigan I can see it really clearly and on nights when it is straight above, it dominates the night sky. It shifts, of course, and depending on the time of year it can parallel the horizon and not be noticeable.  But when it does arc across the sky, you can't miss it and it wouldn't look right to just get rid of it. It may be too bright in the sim when on the ground at a busy airport...but when up at 25K it would be remiss not to show it.

 

--Don

 

Well that is the problem, it is too bright and looks like a cloudy blurry mess in the sim. I am surprised someone like REX or Active Sky hasn't adjusted this with their programs to add new sky graphics.

Well, you made me look. I tried at low graphics and at extreme high graphics (never minding the slideshow maxed sliders gives me) and the Milky Way only looks like a strange cloud, a blotchy and rather badly rendered cloud at that, stretching across the sky.

So I did as the OP said and edited it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Actually didn't really notice it till now. Sort of like that other thread "Don't push this red button, no matter what" in today's forum. I had to look and edit it out.

Somebody should make a better Milky Way, from the ESO panorama.

 

Can't figure out how to post a link, sorry, just google "ESO Milky Way panorama".

Penz, that's what the original .dds looked like (somewhat), although it didn't look anything like that within FSX.

Like I said, I tried high and low graphics settings and got only a funky cloud texture either way - does someone know a trick to make it look better or is blackening the dds the only way to 'fix' it?

My night clouds suck anyway. Maybe there's a fix out there for that too.

It is the low resolution that kills it for me.

 

Not that it is there.

Replacement textures are in the lib, and you should try those before killing the universe!.

 

http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?DLID=187749&CatID=fsxmisc&Cookie=1

 

 

 

Somebody should make a better Milky Way, from the ESO panorama.

 

And that is exactly what this is.