The milky way is about 6 ish mag on a dark, dark night. That is -extremely- faint. You will need to use averted vision, or need to be on a rather tall mountain. The only place where I once saw it clearly was in the Mountains of Corsica.

It will be nowhere as bright as that picture.

Even in good conditions the Milky Way is nowhere near as visible to the naked eye as most published photos make it out to be. The photo you've used as an example is clearly a long exposure or has been post-processed.

This site shows examples of a simulated 'naked eye' exposure of the Milky Way under good conditions (low levels of terrestrial light pollution, no moon - e.g. high NELM) and compares it to typical camera exposures and adjustments used in published photographs of the Milky Way:

http://intothenightphoto.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/view-milky-way-with-your-naked-eye.html

Looking at what stars are visible in Arma's sky though, I'd say a hint of the Milky Way should be faintly visible to some degree. The real one is discernible from the background sky at a NELM (Naked Eye Limiting Magnitude) of around 5. Arma's sky seems to have a NELM of around 5.5 to 5.75.

As Instagoat says though, a NELM of 5.5-5.7 isn't quite enough to see a Magnitude 6 object like the Milky Way in any great detail.

I have to say, when you are in the middle of nowhere(away from cities, or altis and stratis), you should be able to see it clearly, but only if you look at the sky for a minute or two, so your eyes can adjust.

i have seen clear skies on empty places (no city shit) and i can tell you ArmA 3 night sky looks like if you were in detroit or something, because you should be able to see more than white dots

@InstaGoat// yeah. I have seen them many in my grandpa's house in the high altitude-country side. I know that picture is too bright though, :)

@da12thMonkey// Thanks for the great article! That's what I'm looking for. I should read it more detail :) but dull night sky should have more things though.

@vryoffbtdrummr@Dr_Death yeah, in the island like stratis, I think there must be more to see.

Night visibility also depends on the environment, if you think Arma 3's night sky is boring you should look at the sky in a city..it is nothing more than a big black blanket of...nothingness.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/serenedeparture/346310035/sizes/l/in/photostream/

I live in the country, at my house the only source of light is my porch light, and this is what I see most of the time
http://www.flickr.com/photos/-wolfteeth/8598698184/sizes/k/in/photostream/

I have to vote no on this one, I prefer reality over digitally enhanced reality.

Nod, i know startis its not the middle of nowhere.......... but stratis its not LA or NY.... its a small island with a small village, an military airport, and its surrounded by water, do you really think it will have the empty sky of a city?

Regardless, the man DEFINITELY has a point. The sky, especially in areas as remote and unpolluted as Greek islands, is much more interesting than it manages in Arma. You people need to stop using photographs as references. How about people speak from experience living in rural areas? Islands? Photography can skew the contrasts and apparent brightnesses of literally everything.

The fact that this is being downvoted blows my mind. Sure his picture source is skewed, but he's not wrong. BI have bigger fish to fry, but they might as well add this to their list of things to do. On dark nights, the majority of what you will be able to take from your situation is the sky. A more interesting and realistic night sky would be incredibly and amazingly immersive.

@Dr Death: No I think it would have something more like the second link I posted.

what?.....

Nod, the sky doesn't turn black just because there is a light that comes from a flashlight and smoke from your car, the sky needs a shit ton of smoke and light from a city to be unable to see the stars, if like i said, you live in an island, surrounded by sea, where the only present things are an barely used airport and a small town, you are 99% likely to see the sky just like the first image you posted.

You first asked me if I really thought a place like Stratis would have a night sky similar to that of a city. I said no I figured it would look like the second image.

The first image being of a metropolis with who knows how many lights and so on whereas the second is of a starry night sky in a more country setting wherein the only illumination source is the sky itself.

"do you really think it will have the empty sky of a city? "
"you are 99% likely to see the sky just like the first image you posted. "

What.

The picture does give off a Skyrim-esque vibe that could be turning people off. I do think the night sky should have more stars though, I've seen more stars IRL just a few miles outside Houston's city limits.

The attached milkyway.jpg is definitely an extended exposure of the Milk Way spiral arm, along with a inlay for mountains, and possibly additional inlays of other celestial objects such as nebula, galaxies and planets.

I think the current sky within ARMA 3 Beta has too much blue and still doesn't provide the proper illumination from stars and moonless nights. See Bug #8082, "Night time (darkness) visual problem with [DEV] build...".

As far as the stars, I think they're adequate for simulating navigation by stars, but should likely contain more background lighter magnitude stars dependent on light pollution. I also think such celestial objects such as Venus, Mars, and Pleiades (or Seven Sisters) should be visible within the sky, along with a faint echo of the Milky Way depending again depending on light pollution. Using Binoculars, these common celestial should be easily seen. As to whether they're needed for navigation is questionable. The additional celestial objects would definitely give one a better sense of realism when flying, as most pilots understand the orbits of planets around the sun,etc.

More realistic unaided eye digital photos of the Milk Way spiral arm at night can be found on Google Images with the simple search term "Milky Way". Images with any extreme glowing or colors, usually indicates an extended exposure and usage of color filters. Since taking photos in the dark requires extended exposure techniques, essentially all photos will be extended exposures of the Milk Way. However, longer extended exposures will start to show more contrast or brighter glowing which tend to be exaggerated when compared to the unaided eye.

Stellarium is a really great open source project and can be a very good reference for this bug!

I should also mention, higher altitudes (ie. flying at 30,000 ft) will show more stars than at lower altitudes. Also, satellites zipping around in orbit can easily be seen with binoculars and especially with night vision. But have to realize, is integrating any of these features going to be useful, or are they just eye candy?

sorry, nod. mistoke the first and the second image between themselves

I'm not expecting this to be in the full game right now, but it'll be great to be in the game anyway.

Ditto, as to why I up-voted.

One of those really neat features for ARMA 4, or maybe even ARMA 3.5, unless Venus, Mars, Pleiades, or the Milky Way is required for navigation or other reasons. Albeit, the planets or other stellar bodies would be extremely trivial to integrate at this point and I would be surprised if they do not have any of them already integrated as (hidden) features yet! (ie. Mars or Venus might be already integrated as white dots, but doubtful as these should be defined as a separate class. Pleiades should be viewable as one lit star, but also should be seen as seven distinctly different vividly blue newborn stars with binoculars or even at higher altitudes.)

The Milk Way, however, might be a little more difficult to integrate as this celestial object might mask some of the stars used for navigation. In a sense, might actually help train navigation by stars. (Shrugs)

The night sky does not look that way, really. Even far from cities, all you can see with naked eye is a number of stars. These pictures are created using false-color, huge light intensification, long exposure times, etc.
(nebulae are actually seen by naked eye, but as dots, not as large objects)

Well, yeah, you can see Milky way from rural area with no towns around on a moonless night, but is it worth implementing?

i think so, it increases the NVG light and it makes nightsky FAR more realistic, night time its a flaw in ArmA graphic realism

they made night time even more worst by making it too dark in the last patch.

The sky is lacking shooting stars and ambient aircraft collision lights at a far distance

Ambient aircraft collision lights? Are you serious?

the sky should be even darker, but with a brighter sky

I can't see latest developer patch, but the sky background should be pretty much black lit with white star light (and with no hints of blue unless it's dusk or dawn), with the blackest areas being the ground on moonless nights.

Nights with the moon present, the ground should have some white/grey lighting, while the sky still black with white star light. (Anyways, I'm off topic and this is a separate bug mention previously for documentation.)

I think if they do insert the Milk Way, this might induce more star light and maybe fixing the current night light levels. But I don't see why they're having problems with night lighting and/or colors.

I agree with this ticket but not to the extent that it says.

As others have said, the stars at night aren't as clear and colourful as indicated in the photograph, unless your at high altitude. As far as I can tell, both Statis and Altis aren't all that high, they are both islands so both start at sea level. But I haven't seen all of Altis so I'm not a authority on how high Altis is.

A moonless night is when you can see the most stars, as the moon (especially when full) acts as a bright light and makes your iris' contract making your eyes less sensitive to the light stars emit. BIS already has systems in place and working that changes your characters "eyes" depending on what your looking at (either focused around the cross-hair or just overall screen brightness, I don't know). So BIS should be able to have the night sky as detailed as it should be out in the rural areas of the islands and when in towns, bases or anything with bright lights around, your "eyes" will have adjusted to the light and you won't be able to see as detailed of the night sky as you could compared to the rural areas. This could also work with the different phases of the moon. No moon, you can see more stars. Full moon, you see less stars.

Although this implementation of is isn't realistic, as you could look up in the middle of a town where you see nothing else but the sky and be able to see all the stars, but I feel it's good enough until the day they can simulate every particle that refracts light and have proper, realistic light pollution.

Also if they did this they should either: simulate the planets movements (Mars, Venus, etc) or, just remove those planets all together as they usually don't help with navigation and significantly change position in relation to all the other stars we see in our galaxy and less so in our universe.

I understand you. I think that is still big a part of a work in the sky (night and day).

This improve has a very low low low priority. For gameplay is unnecessary and for human eyes very bad or not very often visible. But I agree so beautiful :)

Thanks for your ideas.

If one can find the planets, they can verify the north and south poles.

@Gugla// Thanks for your kind reply. Yeah I don't think this may be in the priority, but it will be great to have this thing in the schedule. Please put these in the schedule(I don't mind it is low low low priority :))

And thanks to the all the people who agree with my idea or disagree. All of you love ARMA3 and know how to make it better! Thank you for your kindly replies. You guys are incredible :)

...and stars should not become bigger when you ZOOM! They look like planets if you ZOOM ;)

Yes, it is true. I will try change with this issue: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=8082

When viewing the sky with binoculars, stars should become more detailed, or brighter. Also, significantly more stars will be visible with binoculars than seeing with the unaided human eye. (ie. Pleiades most times looks like one bright star with the unaided human eye within or around large cities, unless using binoculars. On the outskirts of cities, you can distinctly see several separate stars with the unaided human eye. Within dark regions without light pollution, you can distinctly see all seven or so of the stars with distinct distant spacing or gaps, including the blue hue around the newborn stars.)

Likely displaying more pixels for a single star (or showing them as larger) when looking through binoculars within the game might be simulating brighter stars. (Which would be correct to an extent?)

Might also want to reference this video.

http://vimeo.com/75542539

Ivan and Martin went to the isles. So instead of theorycrafting why don't we just consult them about what it "should look like"? :)

because we have also people in the comments who lives in greece, and its not the first time i would see BIS using old assets, they may think that remaking a whole skybox for a game was too much so they used the same one as in arma 2 (lets be honest, i think its the same skybox)

Frankly I don't put any credit to anyone here claiming to be from Greece since there's no ip and everyone who wants to argue a point is a chronic liar on the internet ;)

still my theory is logicall, BIS is known for being greedy and its something they can do.

Besides, if you think this is right just because people cant prove where they come from then you need a little bit of faith, as much as that sound stupid, you dont need proof for everything, otherwise i wouldn't be able to prove i live in southamerica when i do.

Exactly why people should lead an honest peaceful life. Once you lie or exaggerate, it's a downward spiral. Should always do the best you can in life.

Let's stay on topic, and remember some people are just born to irrationally argue because they enjoy it. ;-)

if you suggest goblinbutt, i dont think he is just irrationally arguing, he is making a good point, but the statement that nobody that comments here lives on greece is just about a little bit less possible to the chance that there are people that lives on greece that commented about this ticket negatively.

Sure the possibility exists, and if someone does indeed claim to be from greece it's POSSIBLE that they are. It's just that we won't know that unless they prove it. They may just be using it as leverage to push their own agenda about how they want the night sky to look.

Personally though I think that the night sky does look a little bleak, but I think it's also kind of okay. I mean we're not after a night sky that looks like it does in skyrim with aurora borealis and such.

I live in Sweden in a city somewhere 2/3 down if you go from the north end. It's not northward enough for an aurora borealis. My impression of the night sky from the city is that you don't really see much of anything, that much is true. However my girlfriend used to live out in the countryside with her parents, a house in the middle of nowhere pretty much. And there was much less light pollution going on at night, and the difference between those nights and the ones from a city were basicly that you could see the stars without a problem, and not just a few bright ones, but a lot of them. There was no backglow of any colors however, those are things that just don't exist outside photos and aurora borealis.

I don't imagine it's any different anywhere else. Night is black and white.

yeah, the colors of the universe are only seen in around 4 k meters from sea level or around above that, as the atomsphere is too thick below that level like to see them. I have also seen clear skies, but the light from the stars compared to real life to the ArmA 3 nightsky is an universe of difference. Besides, i think its pointless to just make up you are from greece to boost the ticket up.

The problem is that, i think that the stars shouldn't be just some white dots but also a light source, like in real life, and they should make it so that the higher up you are you can see the space better.......

But this is not KSP, BIS would have to waste some money to put that from VBS3 to ArmA 3, and we know that they dont want to spend money when talking about upgrading the Real Virtuality 4 from ArmA.

But stars are not a lightsource in any impactful manner right?
The moon however is a different story, it reflects a lot of light from the sun.

Not quite, stars are distant suns, remember that, even in an eclipse a clear night can provide enough light source for the NVG to work.

Talking about that, i am surprised NVG works when raining and when using optics (for rifles, not for snipers) when they shouldn't

ARMA 3 nighttime currently has several deficiencies:

1. The current night sky is too bright. Open ticket for Bug #7612 "Night to bright if moon is under the skyline". And the brightness is much brighter then the city light pollution seen here, versus the simulated light pollution possible within the simulated maps. Took me awhile to realize, the "Night Skies Too Bright" phenomenon was because the art designer was possibly simulating brightness against light polluted skies! (Somebody stated they were going to make it darker, but looks like the agenda got lost!)

2. Moonlit nights versus No Moon lit nights. No difference in ambient lighting, because the night lighting is said to be static, and doesn't take into effect of moon or star light providing lighting. (Again, Bug #7612 "Night to bright if moon is under the skyline") This is a bigger issue then #1 here. A work around, if not already implemented, would be to allow servers to custom figure ambient lighting, for making no moon lit nights possible.

The above should be priority, and linked to this bug as top priorities.

Once those are completed, think the feature of the stars becoming more vivid or brighter as you get higher in altitude is next on the list, alongside implementing random meteors or satellites flashing through the atmosphere. (Stuff like missing sun glare protection from helmets are also missing, alongside missing hearing protection.)

Think this bug here will be a stub for ARMA 4, or for a mod pack.

Interesting that NVG gear shouldn't work under no moon or during bad weather, and it does within ARMA 3 currently! Would be another neat variable to implement or fix. (Albeit, they'll likely forget to degrade the AI's NVG. ;-)

About the lighting... I think it is much better now then in arma 2, the pitch black night killed the gameplay totally if you did not had a NVG on your head. So no, it is not to bright at all, it is now finally playable and for my taste it can even be a bit lighter in the night. Realism shealism, a game needs to be playble at night without NV... even if it is a simulator game.

No. if its a simulator the company can use that as an excuse to throw all the shit away. But yes, nights are not pitch black.

Stars can also be planets or moons. As for the night sky being too bright: in comparison to the terrain that is not illuminated by the moon, yes. Even the moonless night sky does shine. Albeit not much.

There should always be some contrast so that you can make out basic shapes as rocks and trees and houses. In arma 2 a moonless night was a completely black screen, you were basically blind. Now in amra 3 it has improved quite a bit. The darkest dips in the night are still to dark unless you have bright horizon to look at, but it's way better then the old black screen :)

Anybody else notice the darkness or ambient lighting of the night sky is now corresponding to the presence or non-presence of the moon, per Bug #8082?

2014.04.13: Bug #18397, "Flares are useless (launcher)" might be related to this bug or dependent on upon this bug (or vice versa), but isn't a duplicate.

2014.04.18: Marked Fixed within Development Change Log entry, "Engine: Stars don't change size when zoomed in."

I don't know why this has so many downvotes.

1. It's not going to look like the picture, it was just an example.
2. Stratis and Altis are in the middle of the Mediterranean, with no major cities on or around them. If any of you have been camping and hiked way way fire away from any civilization, you will know that the amount of stars you can see is shocking to say the least. There is definitely visible color in the milky way, currently it looks like a piece of paper with holes in it. And when you zoom in, the holes are huge. They should appear as points, having no definite size.

I completely agree.

1. Moving away from any city (metropolitan area) or large well lit airport at night will create darker skies.

2. Zooming into the sky with binoculars alone is going to produce a larger array of viewable stars with dynamic colors and brightness. This larger dynamic effect is exponential when viewing city skies alongside remote skies away from the larger metropolitan areas!

3. All of the fore-mentioned is effected by the level of brightness of the background of the night sky. I've never been flying in the night sky, except as a passenger, and would think in the past the night light levels were unrealistic unless the night skies were well lit by a full moon or clear star lit sky.

I should also mention, the night sky's moon is seemingly smaller than the current size of the moon, but this seems to be a battle of in itself at times due to atmospheric effects (etc.), to accurately depict the actual size of a moon within a photograph or video! Flashlights are also completely useless, requiring most to have to use night vision, avoiding having to look at the dark night sky and enjoy the night lighting experience. (Albeit, most are just going to naturally opt for night vision. But while flying, I usually enjoy piloting without night vision on, no matter how dark it gets!)

I've just uploaded another nice photo of an extended exposure of night sky.

But without thinking of the previous squabbles concerning whether the night sky is blue or black. So please note, it is quite obvious to most that the photographer who took the eta-aquarid-meteor-justin-ng.jpg was using a blue filter. About the only natural visible item within the night sky that is this hot of a blue color is the constellation of Pleiades! (ie. Cluster of newborn stars, and can be seen with binoculars or even the naked eye within remote or non-light polluted areas.)

I think you should upload some less stunning pictures actually. Yours are very nice, but I think the reason this ticket has so many downvotes is because the people think those pictures are what you want in game perhaps?
Just add a few that are more toned down, like these:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Night-sky-milky-way-galaxy-astrophotography_-_West_Virginia_-_ForestWander.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Summit-lake-wv-night-sky-reflection_-_West_Virginia_-_ForestWander.jpg

I suggest any modders try to make their own night sky and we'll see what kind of results we can get. See if it actually works aesthetically and in practice.

can you change skyboxes without changing maps?

With the latest patch, zooming into the night sky seems to show a reverse real effect.

When zooming in or magnifying, should be able to see more stars. Within the game, zooming in the person sees fewer stars!

2014-05-06: Follow-up, thanks Gugla for the verification concerning magnified stars, showing fewer stars then with the naked eye viewing.

Hi Rogerx, lastest patch fixed zooming stars in the sky. Before you was able zoom star to pinpong ball size :) This state was wrongly. Now you are not able zoom stars by eyes or simple telescope, and this is right.

I see one problem, we have very small count of real stars, so if you look through optics, you will see only one - three of stars. This is not real. It we want change in the future.

Thanks for your the best of tips for night sky

Gugla, how hard is it to make stars actually illuminate?

Now are stars actually illuminate. Therefore are visible only if light of environmental is lower than emisive values for stars. This emmisive value is possible changed by config.

If you think use a picture as stars texture, it's not possible now.

On the latest update when flying the A-164 to about 26,000 meters, a visual anomaly will occur where the stars are seen where the earth should be.

If I'm not mistaken, the visual anomaly occurring is the earth becomes smaller than a basketball in relation to the pilots visual surroundings or even smaller. At this point, the stars from both hemispheres are likely able to be seen from heights greater than 12,000 meters.

To reproduce, fly the A-164 (during around midnight) to about 26,000 meters and then noise dive down into the earth or where the earth should be. If I'm not mistaken in reality, escaping the lower atmosphere and clouds, along with the higher altitude should bring the entire Milky Way into view as well as other astronomy related details.

You are right, this is a bug. We must close a bottom part of fake horizont model. Thanks for your message

Thanks for having good constellation at right place. Northen star in Polar minus is at North and the sky is recognizable. Not so boring!

I completely agree. Most would have thought star positions to be a mote feature!

A lot of this is off track it seems but I agree with the OP. I grew up in a small town of about 12,000 people, and at night you can clearly see the milky way, even if you can't see it as clearly as in those pictures you can still see it by the sheer concentration of stars. In game when you are on the highest point in Altis you are far enough from large light sources that it should be more visible. But it would add so much to the game, even if you sacrifice a little bit of realism when you are in Kavala or Pyrgos it would make night time so much better to look at. It wouldn't make combat any better, but when flying helicopters and away from combat areas it would really be something nice. Just imagine it, I think it would add a lot of ambience to night ops. I really hope they update this later on, because most of Altis is open land where there isn't much in the way of light sources, those are the areas where when you look up it just seems really well, boring, places where you should look up and almost get lost in what you are seeing. People in cities might not understand this, but you really don't have to go that far into the countryside to see how brilliant the milky way looks.

Ditto.

It would be abruptly. At night it is very dark, even a clear sky. Lighting from the moon is not enough for other paints on a landscape. When in game night, I simply want to leave game. With the bright night sky, effective falling of stars, and so on... it very interestingly looks.
Orientation on stars, possibility of game without NVGs....

I'm living in the village now (for years) and i see "naked" sky, with "naked" eyes and it look as this in the game. Never seen sky like on those photos. Maybe more stars, some satelites and planes. Nothing more. Why to upgrade something that is good for now? More stars mean more GPU needed, and cries will start. Fix only stars number when using zoom. I focus on stars in game only when using Night Vision in planes, this is game about war, and combat, not about travelling in sky.

Vlad, what's your village elevation?

About 300 M

I think the brightness and darkness levels are a good balance. Part of the night requires night vision due to being too dark. The other part of night when the moon is out, provides just enough ambient lighting for safe and successful flight navigation without requiring night vision. If server administrators desire darker skies, then they can calculate the date for a "new moon" (or "no moon") night and/or even add fog or clouds.

The sky with stars seems to have just enough detail for navigation by stars in my opinion, but I'm by no means an expert of travelling by stars! The night sky does lack any further detail, except for that required for navigation and maybe a few quirks such as including the famed Pleiades. (I've heard some game quirks where writing your server name with stars in the sky was possible, but I do not think this feature is needed at all!)

About the only breaking item for immersion is when using binoculars at night! If using binoculars, users should see far more star detail compared to not using binoculars. And the current zooming feature of binoculars when looking at the night starlit sky seems backwards currently. Stars should appear to get brighter and bigger, versus the current simulation. (I think they do something weird like, spread out and get slightly smaller or remain the same size.)

Interesting features such as Pleiades when using binoculars, Pleiades should show more stars with a vivid blue halo around the seven new born stars.

However, I think the details are adequate for now for navigation only.

i think the problem is not the brightness itself but the fact that stars dont provide enough lightsource and that the sky itself is little populated. I also agree that in terms of illumination with or without NVG in clear sky or not, the illumination is fine

Not so evident! Stars cannot provide light sources in game because objects or #light sources should have 3D position. So distances are limited and that implies relative positions. Sky is not "lamp" populated. On the contrary you can set what you want with a post process effect (ppe functions in Arma). Then, Solar or lunar shadows should be the same process with different parameters.
I don'yt know how the night sky is managed in Arma but it's rather fine! Little improvments should be considered for lunar brightness. Constellations are OK.

PiepMGI: "Constellations are OK."

Now that's describing the simulated stars in the sky of ARMA exactly to a T! The simulated stars do their job for providing navigation by starlight, and nothing more and nothing less except that they do look almost real as long as players do not use binoculars or a magnifying device, or expect any greater clarity when rising to higher altitudes.

I used binoculars - stars are smaller through binoculars.

if not exaggerated, i think yes it can be improved a bit

Stars are/ should be the same size through binocular, due to "infinite" distance. No coef zoom. Moon & sun must be zoomed in.

PiepMGI: How do you figured stars being the same size through binoculars versus the naked eye? For me, seeing stars through binoculars, stars or objects are slightly larger and much brighter or more vivid with any color emitted. Stars not commonly seen via the naked eye are also seen through binoculars. Many more stars not commonly seen via the naked eye become visible by ascending higher altitudes and travelling to more rural areas vacant of light pollution.

If I were the owner of BI, I would tend to then maybe agree with your opinion! ;-)

I routinely resort to using binoculars for examining astronomical objects as I do not have enough money to invest within a standard computer controlled telescope.

A great test for you theory PiepMGI, is to examine Pleiades with the naked eye and compare your observations using binoculars. Pleiades is an easy to find celestial object.

Seeing the stars either remain the same apparent visible size or decrease in apparent visible size using binoculars within ARMA 3 is a very disappointing experience!

Last night I was looking at the night sky using my 10x50 binoculars, and viewing the Milky Way, etc.

A side by side comparison can be easily made using binoculars and naked eye.

1. Stars should be very slightly or marginally larger than naked eye viewing. The difference is definitely noticeable, but difficult to measure. Binoculars magnify all objects seen. Closer objects are clearly magnified while more distant objects are slightly magnified. Extremely distant objects are going to show marginal magnification, but far less obvious than objects as close as the Moon.

2. Stars should be much clearer through binoculars versus naked eye. Or star contrast, and if any color, should be extremely more vivid. Star twinkling or scintillation also has more vivid colors or just more apparent overall. (Should I dare mention pulsar stars here?)

3. Star density (or the number of stars seen) through binoculars should be extremely increased. Although higher altitudes greatly aides with seeing an increased number of stars by naked eye, magnification should be more beneficial?

All the above can be easily confirmed by simply viewing the Milky Way with and without binoculars. Notice the Milky Way appears to be thin layers of puffy clouds. When viewing the Milky Way with binoculars definitively shows the clouds are really many numerous very tiny stars! Very similar to comparatively viewing Pleiades using the naked eye and then with binoculars.

I think the following can be feasibly improved:

1. Binocular simulation: Increasing the star size very slightly when zooming. The moon and the moon's detail should definitely increase with detail.
2. Binocular simulation: Increasing the star density or the number of stars when using binoculars or when only viewing by the naked eye.
3. Naked eye: Simulating the Milky Way across the sky.
4. Of slightly less important value, but maybe easily integrated, is star twinkling or scintillation.

Another eye candy feature obviously omitted, showing satellites orbiting, reflecting sunlight as they move across and only appear to turn as they reach the horizon; as satellites merrily just orbit the earth in one direction.

Wow! Night sky within Apex/Tanoa RC is looking really nice and dark, with nice bright stars!

There are still a few brightness/darkness quirks. Such as glow lights/sticks not being bright enough. Can barely see glow lights.

How do you figured stars being the same size through binoculars versus the naked eye?

Just because angular diameter of a Star is so weak, it's useless to magnify it looking through all Arma's scopes. They are not telescope. Brightness is another problem linked with quality and diameter of the scope main lens. Sky seems brighter because you can see more stars (20 - 50 x) but I'm not sure it's the deal in Arma.

In my experience, using any binocular or telescope regardless of magnification factor, the viewer will see more stars and the stars will appear brighter.

On the flip as PiepMGI mentioned, this is more of a feature and not really a priority. Though could be something quickly and readily fixed, as there are likely already pre-programmed effects using GL protocols.

Albeit, although categorized as "image effects", would mmore accurately be called "image enhancement", or slightly magnify and slightly enlarge stars. This would likely be easier. The more difficult part would be to add more (random) faint stars, or background noise. This would add more realism when using binoculars and scopes at night, even without adding more faint stars. Again though, likely a very low priority, or on the want list instead of a need.