Mun should light up the night skies of Kerbin

[Mushylog]

At night time on Kerbin, the Mun (when lit by the Kerbol sun) should emit a cold light on the shadow sides of Kerbin. So that at night time - and whenever the Mun is not in a new moon phase - the sky, clouds and the terrain of Kerbin is lit by a soft and cold light of the mun.  It would look absolutely fantastic.

[TwoCalories]

Sounds like a good idea to me!

[Toaster355]

1 hour ago, Mushylog said:

At night time on Kerbin, the Mun (when lit by the Kerbol sun) should emit a cold light on the shadow sides of Kerbin. So that at night time - and whenever the Mun is not in a new moon phase - the sky, clouds and the terrain of Kerbin is lit by a soft and cold light of the mun.  It would look absolutely fantastic.

Fantastic idea!

I even think it might already be in development; at 1:22 of this very old video, after Kerbol sets, the surface seems to be illuminated?

Could it just be the camera adjusting to the darkness, or is the Mun lighting up the sky?

Edited October 29, 2023 by Toaster355

[Mushylog]

18 minutes ago, Toaster355 said:

I even think it might already be in development; at 1:22 of this very old video, after Kerbol sets, the surface seems to be illuminated?

True!! I missed that part. It does look like the Mun lights up the KSC. There even are shadows.

[Vl3d]

Did someone break the planet shine system?

[Datau03]

There already is a planet shine system, as Vl3d already mentioned. When you are on Laythe you can clearly see a green shine from Jool, but I guess with the current system either the Mun doesn't shine at all or it is not bright enough to reach Kerbin.

[PicoSpace]

On 10/31/2023 at 5:01 AM, Datau03 said:

There already is a planet shine system, as Vl3d already mentioned. When you are on Laythe you can clearly see a green shine from Jool, but I guess with the current system either the Mun doesn't shine at all or it is not bright enough to reach Kerbin.

It should be bright / large enough as it’s comparable to the earth/moon system and at night on a full moon it’s quite bright compared to new moon it’s orders of magnitude brighter (Astrophotographer here).

[Datau03]

5 hours ago, PicoSpace said:

It should be bright / large enough as it’s comparable to the earth/moon system and at night on a full moon it’s quite bright compared to new moon it’s orders of magnitude brighter (Astrophotographer here).

I completely agree.

(Beginner astrophotographer here)

[Superfluous J]

I agree as well

(Person who's been outside at night a lot here)

[PicoSpace]

And to add, of the Mun is able to eclipse Kerbin (and vise versa) than lighten up the night sky and ground should be in there as well! (And vice versa as well).

[SpaceWalker1870]

Yes, they should totally add this. Especially for the Joolian system, where you often have either jool or another moon in the sky, the added light would not just look awesome, it would also be very convenient and realistic from a gameplay standpoint. 
Also, for duna it means when its day, you have direct light from the sun, but when its night, you have light from ike (provided you are on the right side of duna) meaning you always have some ammount of light which would be very cool.

[SpaceWalker1870]

they should also have like eclipses, like where the sky gets dark and you can see stars. would be cool if there was a solar filter option/part so u can see the solar eclipse as it progresses, but this wouldnt be really necessary, just be cool. But, the dark sky part is for visual purposes a really good idea, especially for moons of gas giants, like during eclipses your solar panels dont generate electricity, its cool if its also dark, including the sky.

[SpaceWalker1870]

would be cool lunar eclipses seen from surface of the moon, like the surface of the moon turns red as the scattered light from the sun passes by kerbins atmosphere

[SpaceWalker1870]

Also, the moon in real life, during full moon illuminates the ground enough you can easily see what you are doing, and generally its really bright at full moon, but in ksp, the mun has around 4 times the apparent size, partially because its closer to kerbin and bigger than the mun(at 1/10 scale) also, the mun has a slightly higher albedo(i think) meaning it reflects more light back. This means, in general it could totally be the same brightness during full moon as like late dusk brightnes, but maybe even brighter. This would be great for late night kerbin explorations, and with the cold moon light would look absolutely epic, especially with new terrain/biomes in ksp2. 
Even more, on laythe would be epic, because a full phase jool would reflect so much light onto laythe, there would be this bright green glow everywhere, it would be like glow in the dark type glow is everywhere, so, like imagine foggy laythe, and a colony next to the shore, with a green glow everywhere.... awesome

[SpaceWalker1870]

also, sky getting dark when really bright celestial body is below you would be cool, as well as when sun is in view. like having the sun visible and like super dim nebulas also as bright, does not make the most sense.
Also, for the future in ksp2, it would be nice if you can see other stars which u can visit from interstellar distances, like how you should be able to normally. would be a cool idea if there was a easy way in game to like select it in the sky or something, like so u can see it out of map mode, like u could be like, "we are going to that star some day" or like at another star system, you could say "we came from that star, in the sky over there"
also, another thing i would like is that planets to be visible from interplanetary distances, like eves radius and its clouds mean it should be visible from kerbin, it would be cool if devs implemented this. especially how like reflecting things could have like a glow thats bigger than their actual radius, so u can see it from really far away. also, this with jool too.

[Mushylog]

1 hour ago, SpaceWalker1870 said:

also, sky getting dark when really bright celestial body is below you would be cool, as well as when sun is in view. like having the sun visible and like super dim nebulas also as bright, does not make the most sense.
Also, for the future in ksp2, it would be nice if you can see other stars which u can visit from interstellar distances, like how you should be able to normally. would be a cool idea if there was a easy way in game to like select it in the sky or something, like so u can see it out of map mode, like u could be like, "we are going to that star some day" or like at another star system, you could say "we came from that star, in the sky over there"
also, another thing i would like is that planets to be visible from interplanetary distances, like eves radius and its clouds mean it should be visible from kerbin, it would be cool if devs implemented this. especially how like reflecting things could have like a glow thats bigger than their actual radius, so u can see it from really far away. also, this with jool too.

I like these ideas!