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Reduce Planet Diameter “Brightness” Relative To Stars

I use sky Safari seven Pro to plan out binocular viewing using among other things the FOV/occular feature. Using the star “object size”, I can get a very accurate representation in the app. Great job on the app! last night Neptune at magnitude 7.8 is much dimmer than it’s Neighbor star HR-2 at magnitude 6.3. but in the app Neptune appears much brighter and “larger” than HR2. How can I reduce the relative brightness and/or size of the planets? “planet magnification” seems like a good way to do this. But it’s already at the lowest value of 1.0x. Is there a way to reduce planet magnification below 1.0x? I’ve created a screenshot, but it seems the web form does not allow screenshots. thank you, Chris
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    Keiron Smith

    Hi Chris, 

    Please attach the screenshot using the website using a desktop computer - or send the screenshot to me: ksmith at simcur.com

    Please review all the SS7 Settings, these are the available options to configure the sky chart.

    Alternatively, you may want to increase the star brightness (see Star Settings) since, as you discovered, the planet magnification is at its lowest level.

    Thanks!

     

  • 0
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    chris-simcur

    Hi Keiron,

    The two screenshots below are of the same scene, I just added labels to one of them.  From Aug 24, 2025.

    HR-2 (white star): mag 6.3 and perfectly represented (along with all other stars) for 15x binocular viewing with symbol size 64% and mag limit 9.0.  Absolutely perfect!

    Neptune (blue) is much dimmer in real life (at mag 7.8) but is represented as much brighter and larger than HR-2 in the app.  This is with "Planet Magnification" of 1.0x (the lowest setting).  As you might imagine the scene becomes silly with "Planet Magnification" larger than 1.0x.  Would be better if I could slide the "Planet Magnification" lower to 0.5x.

     

    I understand I could increase the "star symbol size" to get the planet to look correct relative to the stars.  But that would make the stars totally unrealistic to model viewing through 15x binoculars.  The stars are truly superb with the settings at 64% symbol size.

    I made a sly adjustment to highlight my plight before taking the screenshots: I zoomed out a bit.  When I'm actually using the app, I am zoomed in more to the FOV.  The zooming in process enlarges the stars while the planets remain somewhat the same size, reducing the "problem".

    Request: allow Planet Magnification slider to go lower than 1.0x -- ideally to 0.5x.

     

     

  • 0
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    Keiron Smith

    I've moved this to the Feature Request forum.  Developers review the posts here when planning and preparing SkySafari updates.


    Thanks!

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