Seeing other planets from VERY far away!

[Wizard Kerbal]

These do have a chance to not be true, being pure coincidence, or my eyes seeing what they want to see. 

I always challenge myself to see celestial bodies before I enter their SOIs, but sometimes without even trying I catch a glimpse of other planets suuuuuuper far away! The most common occurrence is Minmus! Sometimes while i’m looking at something else, I see a small green dot. I check the map screen, sure enough it is Minmus.

Then, i’ve had 2 other occurrences. 
The first, I saw duna while doing my escape burn to reach said red planet. I checked where the target indicator was, and it matched up!

And then, doing my escape burn back to kerbin, I see a dot way far in the distance. I consult the map screen, Jool and Eeloo are in that area, but Jool is closer. I clean my screen, it’s still there. It may just have been Jool! Or, this can all be disproved by a dev as my eyes seeing what they want to.

[carppc]

wow

[Dientus]

I had believe I see the same thing. I remember getting a mod (sorry, name escapes me at the moment) that has different cameras you can put on ships/satellites and it marks the position of the planets you are contracted to take pictures of. Using the zoom function and comparing to map and sure enough, whatever planet I  think a see is there. The camera picture moves and shakes with the craft. So I personally believe it is possible.

 

Just wished I could remember the name of that mod...

[Cavscout74]

32 minutes ago, Dientus said:

Just wished I could remember the name of that mod...

I believe this is what you are thinking of:

 

[Dientus]

11 minutes ago, Cavscout74 said:

I believe this is what you are thinking of:

 

YES! That's it! TYVM!

[gabriellabuzz2]

thanks for share, that's awesome

[The Aziz]

Well technically the planets don't disappear when in flight. Thing is, at large distances they're usually smaller than a pixel, and so, not visible.

[Brofessional]

Yea most of the time the planets are just so distant that they are sub-pixel scale and can't be rendered. Distant Object Enhancement is a great mod that (among other things) gives the planets/moons a small flare sprite to make them visible from any distance.

[Vanamonde]

Many versions back, one could see Jool from the surface of Kerbin. I miss that. 

[king of nowhere]

even knowing where it is, even magnifying the view as much as possible, jool becomes visible to me between 5 and 10 Gm. either you have much better graphics than me, or you are just mistaking a random star with a planet.