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Apollonius
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Shouldn't you still see city lights in an eclipse shadow?

30 Oct 2017 01:26

It seems to me as though, after seeing an eclipse in person & seeing street lights cut on automatically, and since daytime drive lights are a thing now, and most cities have the lights on 24/7 in major buildings anyway, wouldn't you still see the city lights layer, even when an eclipse shadow blocks out everything else? It just looks a little odd to me to see total blackness pass over a planet that I know has cities down there.

I have issues with my graphics when using SE, so please forgive me if this is already the case, and my system isn't rendering it correctly, but if not then maybe it's something to consider?
 
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XBrain130
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Shouldn't you still see city lights in an eclipse shadow?

30 Oct 2017 09:05

Well, in 0980e it does it afaik
SpaceEngine's Italian Discord server: https://discord.gg/NhQbEbC
 
Destructor1701
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Shouldn't you still see city lights in an eclipse shadow?

30 Oct 2017 21:50

In real life, if you were viewing a planet from space, watching the shadow traverse across it, you'd still be seeing a lot of sunlit surface around the shadow. The sunlit surface of the Earth is thousands of times brighter than artificial lights, so your eyes or camera would have to reduce their exposure to prevent massive overexposure. Even if you set the exposure of your camera to capture city lights within the shadow, the image would be so glared out by the surrounding sunlit surface (unless you zoomed in on the shadow) that you'd lose the city lights in the glare.

Therefore, in real life, you wouldn't see the city lights in an eclipse shadow (save for some very exceptional circumstances).
 
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Apollonius
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Shouldn't you still see city lights in an eclipse shadow?

31 Oct 2017 18:02

In real life, if you were viewing a planet from space, watching the shadow traverse across it, you'd still be seeing a lot of sunlit surface around the shadow. The sunlit surface of the Earth is thousands of times brighter than artificial lights, so your eyes or camera would have to reduce their exposure to prevent massive overexposure. Even if you set the exposure of your camera to capture city lights within the shadow, the image would be so glared out by the surrounding sunlit surface (unless you zoomed in on the shadow) that you'd lose the city lights in the glare.

Therefore, in real life, you wouldn't see the city lights in an eclipse shadow (save for some very exceptional circumstances).
Yes, but Space Engine already does that though. I know you only see night time lights as brightly because there is no light interference from full or even partial sun, but I think true eclipse shadows would be less defined, more blurry, and you would see night time lights, at least a little bit, particularly in the center where it's darkest usually. Of course this would all depend on the orientations of the bodies in question, but I know with the Earth, the shadow should be less defined, and probably show the night time lights layer, as least partially.
Well, in 0980e it does it afaik
Still does not for me, for some reason. Hmm...
 
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Watsisname
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Shouldn't you still see city lights in an eclipse shadow?

01 Nov 2017 03:42

True eclipse shadows from space look like this.  Its appearance varies a bit from one eclipse to another (width of totality, or annular vs. total), but yes, the shadow generally does not appear sharply defined.  
► Show Spoiler
City lights during the totality are not visible from space, however.  High altitude balloon footage of the 2017 eclipse does not show them, even when the camera is over-exposing the surrounding landscape:
► Show Spoiler
 
sinsforeal
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Shouldn't you still see city lights in an eclipse shadow?

05 Nov 2017 09:01

Image
I'd beg to reckon yes, under the right circumstances. 

"Exactly, The more impossible it is, the more beautiful it is. I stole that from someone in the discord lol. And earth and saturn are lit from the same angle because... PLANET SHINE!
The reflection off both saturn and earth lit the planet that the astronaut is standing on. The reason the earth is dark and we are seeing the night side is because I waited for the random pretty planet I found to eclipse the earth and then I paused there and found a nice spot on it that showed the entire night side of the earth while preserving the lovely twilight/dawn atmospheric scattering.
If I went on to the other side of the earth in this shot it would of been dimly lit by saturn the same how this planet the astronaut is on is dimly lit by saturn.
I created the shot by putting earth in orbit of saturn and finding a random pretty terra to put the astronaut on in a impossibly close orbit of 24,000 kilometers of earth. I downloaded the highest resolution solar system texture pack so the quality of the lights on earth would be the highest. I then proceeded to calculate the necessary right accession a nebula would have to be changed to and the distance from the sun so it would be at the correct angle in this 'beauty shot'.
I choosed the sixth raymarched nebula I believe if I remember correct, I am a beta tester so I have access to that not sure if thats in the regular version. And then finally I increased the aurora to an unrealistic size and put them at an unrealistic attitude so they would be above in the sky and compliment the nebula and the earth. And then I placed the 'standing nasa astronaut model'.
I then took the 4k screenshot with 32x msaa, I recreated it partially yesterday in 8k but with no msaa. Thanks for the comment mate, Gave me a chuckle. I'm glad you liked it."

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