Generate an astronomically accurate night-sky HDR for any place on Earth, any date and time. Real star positions and brightnesses (HYG catalog), the moon with its correct phase and position, planets, the Milky Way, famous nebulae and galaxies, the aurora, and knobs to art-direct sizes, brightnesses and placement. The output .hdr plugs straight into an Environment Dome.

The real night sky, anywhere, any moment in time. Paris at midnight on New Year's Eve. The Sahara under a new moon. Your hometown, on the night you were born or the day you got married — with every star where it actually was. TruSky Nights generates an astronomically accurate, high-dynamic-range (HDR) night-sky environment map in seconds and applies it straight to your Iray Environment Dome.

Stunning realism. Total artistic control. Every part of the sky has a true value and a dial next to it. The moon sits where the ephemeris puts it — until you move the moon where the shot needs it. Its phase is the real phase— until you drag the Phase slider (and press Now to snap back). The aurora sits over the real auroral oval for your geomagnetic latitude — until you pull it overhead for the frame. Nothing here is "realistic mode" versus "artistic mode." It is one sky, physically built, with the knobs left on.

Over 83,000 real stars, correctly placed and correctly bright. Positions and magnitudes come from the HYG catalog, transformed to your exact location, date, and time. Naked-eye planets sit at their true positions. The Milky Way arches where it should — core, dust lanes, nebulae included. Constellation lines and labels included.

A moon that behaves like the moon. True phase (or dial in any phase), the real surface from NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) images, earthshine on the dark limb, and a disc that occludes the stars behind it. Scale it up to 40× for drama, override its position for composition, and — with one checkbox — add a matching distant light so your scene geometry is lit and shadowed by the same moon that hangs in your sky.

Time travel included. Precession of the equinoxes and per-star proper motion are modeled, so the sky stays true for tens of thousands of years into the past or future — type -13000 into the Year field and watch the pole star change and the constellations slowly deform. Render the sky your ancestors saw, or the one nobody will see for another ten millennia.

Deep-sky and dynamic. Famous nebulae and galaxies at their true positions, meteor showers streaking from their real radiants, and a procedural aurora — all optional, all art-directable, and all rendered only in a dark enough sky.

Fully compatible with DS 4.24 and DS 6.