Neutron stars "lensing" like black holes?

Zeeman

Zeeman
When did this happen?

I popped into a Neutron star system, today, checked out the system map, as I do, and decided it was worth my while to fly around a bit. A usual, there was one planet on the other side of the star compared to all the others, means a 6kLs trip back... Nothing unusual there. Whilst making my way over to it, I started looking around, checking the star field for anything interesting that I may want to look up and target on the galaxy map, when I noticed the sky distorting and shifting in the same way as if a black hole was present.

Having just gone through 4 or 5 black hole systems straight, I didn't pay much attention for the first few seconds, then remember that I had jumped into a neutron star system. I started flying around, and sure enough, just like a black hole (except with a little white dot int he middle) it distorted everything behind it.

Now, I went through about 200 neutron star systems in the last week, whilst I head tot he far side of the galaxy from Sagittarius A - and not once did I noticed this before. It's not like I just jump from Neutron to Neutron, blow the horn, scan the star and jump tot he next, either, I usually check them out properly, unless it's just rocky planets. I would think I would have noticed this before....

So... Has this always been like this, and I've just missed it? Oorrr... is this something new? I've also noticed an awful lot of black holes with no lensing. I assumed they were too small for the effect to be visible without getting much closer..

Anyways... Anyone else?

Z...
 

Kancro Vantas

Kancro Vantas
Just shy of 100 ly from a targeted neutron star system that I'll be visiting tonight when back home. Will check for this effect as I havent notice it before.

It makes sense though that with that density, a neutron star could exert lensing in surrounding light.

How massive was it?? Maybe that's the difference. i have seen some laughable neutron star 2-3 times the Sun mass -something we know doesnt happen in nature.

Maybe this one was properly 10 or more solar masses?
 

Hairylee

H
White dwarves also have the lensing effect. Just noticed.


By the way. The lensing doesnt always occur on my particular setup. It seems to be bugged .. ?

Currently I am located in a dense neutron star / black hole region 20K LY out.
Right after starting up ED lensing is lacking. After half an hour or so of playtime it generally magically appears from there on.
 

Flyto

F
Zeeman said:
So... Has this always been like this, and I've just missed it? Oorrr... is this something new? I've also noticed an awful lot of black holes with no lensing. I assumed they were too small for the effect to be visible without getting much closer..
Click to expand...

Neutron stars have had a lensing effect since... 1.2, I think? I believe white dwarves got it at the same time, although I haven't seen a WD since.

Since a more recent patch, you can also get *really* close to black holes. By "really close", I mean that I recently got 36km from a stellar-mass one, at which point the Einstein ring filled my screen.
 

Kay Ross

Ex-FDEV Render & Stellar Forge
The degree of visible lensing is related to the density of the body and your proximity to it.
The lensing around some bodies may be too subtle to notice from a distance.
 

Zeeman

Zeeman
Interesting - thanks Anthony, and thanks all. I was just surprised because, well, I had not noticed it in the last few weeks while I've been out exploring, and I've gone through hundreds of the suckers!

I'll pay more attention to the solar mass from now on. I'm now on the hunt for my first white dwarf...

Z..
 
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Zenith

Zenith
Kancro Vantas said:
Just shy of 100 ly from a targeted neutron star system that I'll be visiting tonight when back home. Will check for this effect as I havent notice it before.

It makes sense though that with that density, a neutron star could exert lensing in surrounding light.

How massive was it?? Maybe that's the difference. i have seen some laughable neutron star 2-3 times the Sun mass -something we know doesnt happen in nature.

Maybe this one was properly 10 or more solar masses?
Click to expand...

Neutron stars have an upper limit of about 3 solar masses. Higher than than and gravity overcomes the neutron degeneracy pressure and the neutron star collapses into a singularity and becomes a black hole.

Now I've seen black holes in-game below 3 solar masses, but never a neutron star over 3.
 

Kzak

Kzak
I think neutron stars having gravitational lensing arrived with one of the 1.2 patches. Fairly recent.
 

c64orinoco

c64orinoco
In the real world, our own sun will lens. Apparently you can spot the effect with a good telescope during a total solar eclipse. it's how the theory of gravitational lensing was proved.
 

lonewarrior

lonewarrior
You know the same thing happened to me yesterday
-
I was convinced there was a black hole in the system that my advanced discovery scanner wasn't picking up
-
Guess now I know I wasn't going crazy
 

clavain

clavain
All these effects are very cool and have been improving since launch, so great work and many thanks to the developer(s) and artists involved! I hope they keep adding to them, and we start seeing some accretion disks and other interesting effects around some black holes soon.
 

Kzak

Kzak
White dwarves also have some gravitational lensing to them.

2015-04-12_00007.jpg
 

theEmohawk

T
The lensing effect on NS and dwarfs is far more subtle. I spotted moving at speed past a NS, I don't see it when I'm moving slowly.
 

Aussiedroid

Aussiedroid
I have noticed it can be hard to see sometimes, but often can see if when you move slowly around it, but other times it seems like the effect is not loading (haven't been able to confirm this except for one black hole where after a reload into the system it failed to load the effect).

Also noticed that the lensing effect doesn't seem to impact any objects in the immediate system, only those things that are drawn into the skybox. I had a Black Hole close to a star but it was not obscured in any way. Was a bit disappointing to see as this would have been an epic screenshot! :(
 

Varrag

Varrag
Zenith said:
Neutron stars have an upper limit of about 3 solar masses. Higher than than and gravity overcomes the neutron degeneracy pressure and the neutron star collapses into a singularity and becomes a black hole..
Click to expand...

Or a hypothetical quark star. Though, if they exist, it would be hard to distinguish them from regular neutron star.

Aussiedroid said:
Also noticed that the lensing effect doesn't seem to impact any objects in the immediate system, only those things that are drawn into the skybox. I had a Black Hole close to a star but it was not obscured in any way. Was a bit disappointing to see as this would have been an epic screenshot!
Click to expand...

Yep, gravitational lensing effect is projected onto the skybox - it seems that the game engine cannot simulate in-system effect, nor the dynamic lighting of celestial bodies.
 
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Aussiedroid

Aussiedroid
Varrag said:
Yep, gravitational lensing effect is projected onto the skybox - it seems that the game engine cannot simulate in-system effect, nor the dynamic lighting of celestial bodies.
Click to expand...

That's a bummer! I hope they can enhance the game engine for these things at some point and its not a 'hard' limitation. Likewise would love to see transient objects like comets, pulsars, super/hypernova etc & interaction between bodies (like things getting sucked into a black hole) added one day.
 

Zplintz

Zplintz
I suspect lensing by working out the bending of light in realtime would require a huge amount of additional processing and whilst pretty it wouldn't really add much to the game.
 
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