It's NOT full of stars!

[rgatkinson]

With apologies regarding the plagiarism of a famous movie quote. I don't usually fly at night in FS9 but have been doing so lately. I've noticed that there's not a single star in the clear night sky. I've tried 'real stars' (available online) and have even restored a copy of the original stars.dat from the FS9 install disc but still no stars - weird.

Has anyone else encountered this problem and, if so, and you've managed to fix it would you mind sharing the details with me please?

Thanks, Taff

[huub vink]

I don't know how FS2004 displays starts, so I absolutely have no idea where to start. You could use the star.dat file from Full Environment 9, but I'm almost certain that the problem is not the star.dat file.....

Good luck and look at it from the positive side: "Another challenge to be solved!"

Cheers,
Huub

[rgatkinson]

Always up for a challenge Huub. But can anyone confirm that their version of FS9 is displaying the twinkling little devils first please. I can then assume it's something specific to my setup rather than a limitation of FS9. I had wondered if the FS9 code is now unable to calculate the correct positions of stars in the sky (if it ever did) so has just given up and stopped displaying them all together.

Cheers, Taff

[fsafranek]

I have stars. Not many but they are there. Started at Seattle with clear skies and time set to midnight local time.
Slewed up to a few thousand feet and checked external view off the wingtip. There are stars out there as you slowly spin the aircraft.

[Ascua]

Hi all

AFAIK there are 2 files for Stars.dat in FlightSim.com, one for FS2002 and the other for FSX, apparently it only changes the number of constellations.

However, if you open the file with notepad, you'll find that you have an "Intensity" value, I would say that increasing that value you should be able to see more stars.

In any case, personally I have always been able to see stars in the FS skyes

Hope it helps

[huub vink]

Taff, I can confirm I have stars. according to my stars.dat file there are even 9095 stars. Like fsafranek already mentioned, the sky isn't really filled with them, but several are clearly visible.

Thanks to Ascua, I now know you can manually edit your star.dat file. I always thought you needed a tool like "real stars" to do this. (Not that I really intend to). But I think his suggestion to increase the intensity is a good one. I have looked at the stars.dat file from FSX, as I think stars are much brighter in that sim. But there isn't much difference and the "brightness value" is 230 in both.

Just for fun I changed the intensity value to 500, but I didn't notice much difference.

Cheers,
Huub

[Motormouse]

Try this...


https://www.rikoooo.com/downloads/viewdownload/46/117

And IIRC , the bubble sextant gauge by Dave Bitzer (usual places) includes details of star charts etc.

Ttfn

Pete

[rgatkinson]

Thanks for your replies guys, much appreciated. I have tried the slew method/check mentioned by Frank but still no stars. I will try the other suggestions and let you know how I get on. If it is something unique to my setup and I ever figure out what it is and how to cure it I'll let you know also.

Regards, Taff

[Shessi]

Not enough...Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds...that's the problem right there.........lock-down...man....


Shessi

[Mick]

FWIW, another data point: I use realstars and I have scads of them in my night sky.

Here's a wild guess: might you have your visibility set low so that the starts are lost in haze? Or if not exactly that, could it have something to do with something in your weather settings? Try going to the Change Weather screen and selecting Clear Skies (clears all weather.)

[rgatkinson]

Thanks for the suggestions Mick, I've tried clear weather conditions and still no stars whatsoever. As I've said very strange indeed. I'll keep pondering.

Taff