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Celestial Objects with Naked Eye from KSC


Wcmille

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I don't know about from the KSC, but a few hours ago I saw Eve from Kerbin orbit zoomed in from IVA. (weapons targeting testing) i thought it was a speck of dust on my screen, it was literally 4 purpleish pixels. Though it was technically from orbit, I could have seen it from the ground at night with good timing so you can add Eve to the list. (Are you making a list?) I'm sceptical about anything else though, as I checked map view and it was the closest approach by any celestial body to Kerbin, and it was only four pixels. It would be cool to see a list with which body's and dates.

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If you use distant objects enhancement mod, you can see all bodies at night and in orbit. It just creates little colored dots in the sky. They blend in very nicely with the skyboxes so typically they are hard to see unless you are really looking for them.

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I've seen Sarnus from OPM (which I consider part of a "stock" game) from Mun orbit, but the difference between that and Kerbin's surface, relatively, is negligible. Granted, it was only a few pixels of pink. Maybe even just one. I don't remember. I've also seen Duna once, some years back.

Edited by OrbitalBuzzsaw
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It does depend how close Kerbin is to that world. I have seen images showing what might be Jool in KSC's sky.  It might be worth using timewarp to put Kerbin and Jool and other worlds in close proximity to see for yourself.  Of course, that mostly only works for those outside Kerbin's orbit. Eve might be possible at its most gibbous before it falls behind the sun.

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On ‎4‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 3:21 PM, Wcmille said:

Which celestial objects are visible from KSC with the naked eye (aside from Minmus, Mun, and the Sun)?

Is it possible to see Jool at night?

Try this...

The article gives a lot of information like the apparent brightness of all the celestial bodies in the stock solar system.

 

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On 4/10/2017 at 4:10 AM, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

I've seen Sarnus from OPM (which I consider part of a "stock" game) from Mun orbit, but the difference between that and Kerbin's surface, relatively, is negligible. Granted, it was only a few pixels of pink. Maybe even just one. I don't remember. I've also seen Duna once, some years back.

This is my nightmare become real...

Don't mind me, continue talking.

Edited by Hypercosmic
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12 hours ago, OhioBob said:

Try this...

The article gives a lot of information like the apparent brightness of all the celestial bodies in the stock solar system.

 

Thanks for this. I've never tried to look at Jool in opposition, but I'm assuming that it can't be seen in stock if the image you are showing would really be that large. Can we conclude that the celestial bodies get clipped? What is the algorithm? Is it simple distance?

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3 minutes ago, Wcmille said:

Thanks for this. I've never tried to look at Jool in opposition, but I'm assuming that it can't be seen in stock if the image you are showing would really be that large. Can we conclude that the celestial bodies get clipped? What is the algorithm? Is it simple distance?

After I posted that link I realized that your original question meant, what planets can we see from Kerbin in the game.  Of course my article was written from the perspective of what could we see if we were living on Kerbin in a real life solar system.  The article is completely hypothetical and has nothing to do with what we can actually see in the game.  The image of Jool that I show is magnified, as it is my interpretation of what it would look like through a telescope.  In the game, if Jool can be seen at all, it would just be a dot.

I haven't investigated the visibility of planets from a distance in the actual game.  Though my own personal experience is that I've never been able to spot them until I'm relatively close - where I can either spot a glint coming off of them, or I can spot their movement.  I doubt Jool can be seen from Kerbin in stock, but it would be nice to be proven wrong.  Of course I don't know how anyone could verify whether or not the dot they see is actually Jool.

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I can't help but notice how DOE allows us to see even bodies that are very unlikely to be observed with the naked eye.

Case in point:(playing with DOE and OPM)

Seeing a bright purple dot in the sky, I check the tracking station. Did I observe Eve? Nope, it's behind Kerbin currently. So what did I see? Zooming off, I realize I just observed Neidon. Keep in mind, Neidon is darker and much smaller than Neptune, an object that is already considered to be insanely difficult to observe with the unaided eye, even in excellent conditions.

Soooo... do kerbals have some REALLY good sight?

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1 minute ago, MinimalMinmus said:

I can't help but notice how DOE allows us to see even bodies that are very unlikely to be observed with the naked eye.

Case in point:(playing with DOE and OPM)

Seeing a bright purple dot in the sky, I check the tracking station. Did I observe Eve? Nope, it's behind Kerbin currently. So what did I see? Zooming off, I realize I just observed Neidon. Keep in mind, Neidon is darker and much smaller than Neptune, an object that is already considered to be insanely difficult to observe with the unaided eye, even in excellent conditions.

Soooo... do kerbals have some REALLY good sight?

well you could go into the cfgs and set the color for those bodies to be black. that's what I do

Edited by Galileo
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Just now, Galileo said:

well you could go into the cfgs and set the color for those bodies to be black

Could do, but I'd rather have a config that allows them to be smaller (I know, 1-pixel limit and such...), as even Jool seems to be rather huge with DOE... Do you have any idea of how I could do that?

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2 minutes ago, MinimalMinmus said:

Could do, but I'd rather have a config that allows them to be smaller (I know, 1-pixel limit and such...), as even Jool seems to be rather huge with DOE... Do you have any idea of how I could do that?

you can open the GUI and set the flare size

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I set my resolution to 4K 8x AA and using target lock tried really hard to see any other planets. The only visible bodies where Kerbol, Mun and Minmus. This leads me to conclude that - at least from the surface - it's not possible to see other planets.

I also tried from sun orbit, using the approach where you start close to the planet and then recede away and see when it disappears. First thing to note is that planets are bloody obvious when they are visible, they stick out like sore thumbs relative to the starfield. You might not randomly see them without some kind of targetting system, but I used a great number of I-Beams to make a long pointer and if the planet was there at the end of my pointy stick it was obvious, flickering and sharp relative to the blurry starfield, this is especially obvious with Jool's moons which are exceptionally flickery on timewarp when you are close enough to see them, after a while the flickering stops so I assume they simply stop being rendered altogether.

Eve disappeared at about the closest approach distance between Eve and Kerbin, but that was with my ship being at a location where Eve was well lit. At the closest approach between Eve and Kerbin, Eve will be very poorly lit. I wouldn't discount the possibility that Eve might be visible from Kerbin orbit but it would probably be a small dark pixel, perhaps with an occasional flicker to bright depending on whether the game chooses to render a pixel from the dark or bright part of the disc.

As for Jool, ehhhh, it kind of disappeared at about 1/4 the distance from Kerbin to Jool. It's also fairly dim, being green and black. I suppose it might be possible to see it as a single pixel that flickers between green and black. Without zoom, no chance at all of seeing the other planets.

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11 hours ago, blakemw said:

I set my resolution to 4K 8x AA and using target lock tried really hard to see any other planets. The only visible bodies where Kerbol, Mun and Minmus. This leads me to conclude that - at least from the surface - it's not possible to see other planets.

I also tried from sun orbit, using the approach where you start close to the planet and then recede away and see when it disappears. First thing to note is that planets are bloody obvious when they are visible, they stick out like sore thumbs relative to the starfield. You might not randomly see them without some kind of targetting system, but I used a great number of I-Beams to make a long pointer and if the planet was there at the end of my pointy stick it was obvious, flickering and sharp relative to the blurry starfield, this is especially obvious with Jool's moons which are exceptionally flickery on timewarp when you are close enough to see them, after a while the flickering stops so I assume they simply stop being rendered altogether.

Eve disappeared at about the closest approach distance between Eve and Kerbin, but that was with my ship being at a location where Eve was well lit. At the closest approach between Eve and Kerbin, Eve will be very poorly lit. I wouldn't discount the possibility that Eve might be visible from Kerbin orbit but it would probably be a small dark pixel, perhaps with an occasional flicker to bright depending on whether the game chooses to render a pixel from the dark or bright part of the disc.

As for Jool, ehhhh, it kind of disappeared at about 1/4 the distance from Kerbin to Jool. It's also fairly dim, being green and black. I suppose it might be possible to see it as a single pixel that flickers between green and black. Without zoom, no chance at all of seeing the other planets.

Have you tried using the zoom feature on IVA?

I think I have seen a picture of Jool from LKO on this forum recently, taken using the zoom, but I'm not sure where I've seen it.

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Yeah using 4k resolution and an IVA-scope Jool and Eve are resolvable as small disks. Duna is a couple of pixels. Moho can be seen as a pixel that flickers in and out of existence - I doubt it'd be visible on 2k. Dres and Eeloo are for all intents and purposes unobservable but I wouldn't discount the possibility that they might be occasionally be seen as a pixel that lights up for a single frame.

Jool at 4k through IVA zoom (looking down the barrel of a 1.25m structural fuselage piece):

e8pE7vf.png?1

Jool is the little green thing

And here is Jool with IVA-zoom at 16k resolution via screenshot supersample, and resized to 8x in gimp

0qEtVq7.png

I was hoping one of the moons would show up but I guess even higher resolution would be needed.

 

I also tried taking an image of Dres using supersample, however nothing appeared in the screenshot.

Edited by blakemw
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8 hours ago, blakemw said:

Yeah using 4k resolution and an IVA-scope Jool and Eve are resolvable as small disks. Duna is a couple of pixels. Moho can be seen as a pixel that flickers in and out of existence - I doubt it'd be visible on 2k. Dres and Eeloo are for all intents and purposes unobservable but I wouldn't discount the possibility that they might be occasionally be seen as a pixel that lights up for a single frame.

Jool at 4k through IVA zoom (looking down the barrel of a 1.25m structural fuselage piece):

e8pE7vf.png?1

Jool is the little green thing to the right

And here is Jool with IVA-zoom at 16k resolution via screenshot supersample, and resized to 8x in gimp

0qEtVq7.png

I was hoping one of the moons would show up but I guess even higher resolution would be needed.

 

I also tried taking an image of Dres using supersample, however nothing appeared in the screenshot.

What game date/time was this taken? What mods were necessary? Was this taken from KSC or elsewhere?

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1 minute ago, Wcmille said:

What game date/time was this taken? What mods were necessary? Was this taken from KSC or elsewhere?

Jool can be observed from orbit of Kerbin almost all the time you're orbiting on the dark side. (my expereince with telescope)

There is no necessary mod to picture Jool this way.

It can be taken whereever on Kerbin at night.

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2 hours ago, Wcmille said:

What game date/time was this taken? What mods were necessary? Was this taken from KSC or elsewhere?

No mods. Just IVA (viewing cupola) with a targeting guide (I used the hollow structural piece).

I took those screenshots in LKO, but it worked just as well from the ground, day or night didn't seem to matter.

The main thing is game resolution matters, the higher you crank up your resolution the more pixels a planet will occupy. You can also set the value "SCREENSHOT_SUPERSIZE" in settings.cfg to 2 or more to increase the resolution used for screenshots.

Edited by blakemw
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