Astral Skies — Zephyrfit

An animated astronomical sky for Valheim: catalogue stars, identifiable planets, lunar phases, a structured Milky Way and regular meteor showers. A nocturnal raid brings a full copper blood Moon, with a 15× reference-disc diameter setting by default.

0.4.2 — public beta. New eclipse rendering requires in-game validation. Built for skywatching, from subtle astronomy-inspired nights to a spectacular fantasy sky. Open F8 to make it yours.

Installation

Install AstralSkies by Zephyrfit from the Valheim catalogue in Gale, then launch the modded game. BepInEx is the only declared dependency; players do not need the .NET SDK or the source kit.

For manual installation, extract the package's BepInEx folder into your existing BepInEx game installation. Keep only one AstralSkies DLL. If you previously used a local development copy, remove its mod entry before installing the catalogue release; retain BepInEx/config/com.zephyrfit.astralskies.cfg for your preferences. Dedicated-server instructions are included in SERVER_INSTALL.md.

New in 0.4.2

Milky Way brightness and Dawn / dusk warmth now both range from 0 to 3. Changes apply live in the GPU renderer, persist automatically and are included in both favorites. Existing settings and defaults are preserved. Dawn/dusk warmth requires Enhanced daytime sky and a compatible native sky shader. These are local visual controls; no server update is needed for the two expanded limits.

Introduced in 0.4.1

Milky Way width ×0.5–5, radiance 0–300%, particle strength 0–5, and Andromeda/Pleiades glow ×0.2–5. New saturation 0–300% changes Milky Way colours, radiance and particles; 100% preserves the original palette. Brightness changes light intensity; width changes the band's extent. Diffuse-object glow affects only Andromeda and the Pleiades, visible at night above the horizon. These live GPU settings persist locally and in both favorites. The existing French-game / otherwise-English language selection is retained. No server update is required for these 0.4.1 visual controls. In-game visual checks remain pending.

Introduced in 0.4.0 (initial ranges)

• Astral Panorama / Panorama astral: a built-in preset based on the author's demonstrated settings: Sun 6.2, Moon 15, halo 10.2, daytime brightness 0.6, Amethyst galaxy and clear panorama. Quality, UI and unshown values stay independent.
• Milky Way controls: width 0.5–3, structure contrast 0.3–3, diffuse radiance 0–200%, extra faint stars and optional slow fantasy particles. GPU only; stored in both favorite slots. New effects default to off and width/contrast to 1.
• Opt-in eclipses: linked Sun/Moon apparent size 1–15 with lunar variation ±5.5%; independent classic sizes are retained and return when disabled. Larger sizes prolong/widen contacts. This is a fictional equinoctial calendar.
• Solar eclipses: actual disc overlap, dark lunar silhouette, dimmed atmosphere and light, corona near total coverage, some star visibility near totality.
• Lunar eclipses: a moving curved umbra and copper shading on the existing lunar surface. No replacement of the classic Moon asset or its normal shading.
• Observation: eclipse coverage, approximate upcoming alignment windows and an optional local start banner. Windows are not a guarantee of visibility: horizon, weather, personal sizes and time overrides matter.
• Raids retain priority: eclipse effects pause through raid transitions; the raid Moon keeps its separate 1–40 diameter. No raid or clock changes.

Enable eclipses in F8 → Details with Coherent Sun/Moon and Moon enabled. The shared-size slider is separate from your classic Sun/Moon sliders. A server with 0.4.0 shares 6 - Server / EclipseOrbitCycles (2–24, default 6): this controls fictional nodal precession, not an exact interval between eclipses. Use matching versions for the shared calendar. Visible contacts still depend on local sizes. The new rendering has been compiled and checked offline, not certified in Unity.

Features

• 8,404 catalogue stars, rotating sky, subtle stellar colours and scintillation.
• Five moving planets with larger steady halos and distinct tints.
• Milky Way, procedural cloud/dust structure, Andromeda and Pleiades glow.
• Direct spherical sky: removes the intermediate six-face projection used by earlier releases; the Milky Way fades to zero at its outer edges.
• Four constellation guides: Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, Orion and Cygnus. Lines reveal progressively; aim at a member star or line for one second to see the name. No permanent labels. Anchors-only mode is available.
• Reticle identification: aim for one second at supported bright stars, planets, deep-sky objects or the coherent Sun/Moon. Names follow the panel theme. Solid obstacles and horizon are checked; clouds can still hide a labelled position.
• Coherent Sun/Moon cycle: a simplified equinoctial reference follows the local day clock and lunar phase. Full Moon is opposite the Sun; quarter/crescent timing shifts. The illuminated lunar side is oriented toward the Sun. Native discs are retained if the custom pass is unavailable or the option is disabled.
• Daytime sky: adjustable solar disc/halo, richer native atmospheric tint and warm dawn/dusk colours. Native biome weather, rain and clouds remain in control.
• NASA-derived lunar surface up to 2048², phase shading and faint earthshine.
• Blood Moon: synchronized raid state, 15× reference diameter default, copper halo and optional sky/fog/ambient tint. The fantasy raid Moon moves toward opposition.
• Regular meteors, softer shower onset/decay and occasional brighter gold trails.
• Personal composition: independently hide Yggdrasil/clouds, choose three themes, move/resize the F8 panel, and set visual style and graphics quality separately.

Controls and language

Click −/+ for one step, or hold: repeats start after 0.4 seconds, then one step per 0.08 seconds. Each control keeps its own step (0.1, 0.05, etc.). Leaving the button cancels the hold; release and press again to resume. Closing F8, losing focus, scrolling or changing tabs cancels it. Sliders also work directly.

Game language French → French UI; every other game language → English. If the game language is unavailable, only a French system language selects French.

Appearance controls — F8 → Details

• Sun diameter 1–15, default 3; Moon 1–15, default 3.3. Linked by default at +10%; changing the Moon slider adjusts that ratio. Unlink for independent size.
• Blood Moon 1–40, default 15, on the same reference scale as Sun and Moon. It is not multiplied by the normal lunar diameter. Sun halo 2–15, default 2.
• Daytime brightness 0.1–3 and tint saturation 0–3 are independent, with neutral values of 1. Requires Enhanced daytime sky and native shader support. Saturation changes the atmospheric tint, not a full-screen colour grade.
• Five artistic Milky Way palettes: Neutral, Boreal Blue, Copper, Amethyst, Emerald. Live GPU controls; catalogue star colours stay independent.
• Planet colour emphasis 0–2: white / natural-inspired / enhanced. Copper Mars, ivory Venus, pale golden Saturn; restrained coloured outer halos around bright cores. These are display tints, not calibrated photometry or resolved planets.
• Favorite 1 / Favorite 2: Save, Load or Overwrite visual settings including palettes and planet colours. Stored locally across game/PC restarts. Quality, interface and server parameters stay independent.

The new disc scale uses new configuration keys, so upgrading adopts the requested 3 / 3.3 / 15 defaults and halo 2 once; other preferences are preserved. Subsequent edits persist. Legacy size keys no longer drive these controls.

Local preferences and quality

F8 → Details offers Subtle / Immersive / Spectacular / Astral Panorama visual presets. All values remain editable. Presets preserve quality, interface and blood-Moon diameter. Settings save automatically to the local Gale/BepInEx profile and survive game and PC restarts. Different players can choose different looks. Characters sharing one local profile share its settings; there is no per-character cloud sync.

Select a level, then Apply quality — reload sky in F8 → Details. A brief loading pause is possible. F8 distinguishes the active and selected levels. Selection is saved and also takes effect on the next launch.

The GPU field now draws spherical geometry directly at the game's rendering resolution. There is no intermediate six-face sky texture or 4K cube allocation. Quality changes actual mesh detail and Moon sampling, not the game resolution. High and Ultra deliberately share the same 2048² Moon; a small lunar disc may show little visible resolution difference. No FPS or VRAM promise is made. The static CPU emergency fallback still uses a cube capped at 1024².

At default server rate and local density, base meteors launch every 10 world seconds at night. Additional shower launches occur during 40-second windows in 120-second cycles. Tracks can be outside the camera view. Server rate zero disables all streams; matching local densities are needed for matching client schedules.

Build from source / local Gale installation

The separate source kit includes INSTALLER_AstralSkies.cmd. Extract the whole kit, close Valheim and run it to rebuild against your installed Unity/BepInEx libraries and register a local mod in Gale. Building requires .NET SDK 8+. Game and BepInEx libraries are not redistributed.

Realism and compatibility

Star data and lunar source imagery are real; brightness, sizes, galactic structures, halos and event density are artistic enhancements. The solar/lunar cycle is an adaptation to Valheim, not a full terrestrial ephemeris. Optional eclipses add a simplified inclined lunar orbit and apparent-size variation; no libration or seasonal day-length simulation. Planet calculations use an approximate JPL model and a fictional world calendar. North alignment still needs verification in game. The blood Moon's size and orbital shift are fantasy.

The native atmosphere is retained. Custom sky/cloud shaders, reflections, indoor occlusion, shadows and compatibility with Seasonality need in-game checks. The new Sun/Moon pass uses the built-in rendering pipeline; disable its option to return to native disc trajectories. Stars/planets/guides remain hidden at midday except for the optional near-total solar eclipse effect. No enemy spawns, raids, time progression or weather presets are rewritten.

See LISEZMOI_FR.md, TEST_PLAN.md, VALIDATION.md and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. The icon is promotional artwork; the lunar asset preview is an offline data check, not a gameplay screenshot.

Assistance — Zephyrfit

Available on Discord — zephyrfit for installation help, troubleshooting, bug reports, improvement suggestions and help from external contributors. Include mod/game versions, reproduction steps, BepInEx/LogOutput.log, and installer logs when relevant.

Présentation française

Astral Skies 0.4.2 enrichit les journées et les nuits de Valheim : étoiles réelles, planètes identifiables, Voie lactée, constellations progressives, phases lunaires et étoiles filantes. Le cycle Soleil/Lune proposé suit l’horloge du jeu : pleine lune opposée au Soleil et horaires décalés pour les autres phases. Lors d’un raid nocturne synchronisé, une lune de sang de taille 15 et une ambiance rouge cuivrée réglable donnent un signal commun aux joueurs équipés.

L’apparence reste personnelle : préréglages Sobre, Immersif, Spectaculaire, quatre qualités graphiques applicables en jeu, ciel sphérique direct, interface F8 déplaçable et réglages sauvegardés automatiquement dans le profil local. La Lune utilise une surface NASA recalculée jusqu’à 2048². La résolution maximale ne garantit pas un gain perceptible ni un niveau de performances donné.

Bêta publique. Dans Gale, chercher AstralSkies — Zephyrfit, installer puis lancer le jeu moddé. Aucun SDK nécessaire pour jouer. Pour la lune de sang commune, installer aussi la même version sur le serveur. Les joueurs sans le mod gardent leur ciel d’origine. La compatibilité avec les autres modifications de ciel et les performances selon les configurations restent à évaluer.

Je suis disponible sur Discord — zephyrfit pour l’assistance, la résolution de bugs, vos suggestions d’amélioration et les propositions d’aide tierce : code, tests, traductions ou compatibilité.

Développé par Zephyrfit.

0.5.7

• Keep as_event for local previews; add as_event_global solar|lunar|blood [seconds], off and status for server-wide admin events.
• Authorize each request from the live direct peer socket using the native server admin list. Add duration bounds, per-connection rate limits and replay rejection.
• Synchronize forced state over the direct server transport, including late joins; retain legacy compatibility for natural sky state, not global administration.
• Use server day/night and horizon conditions. Preserve world time, natural lunar calendar and personal settings. Expire events automatically and prioritize real raid blood Moons over forced eclipses.
• Global blood Moon activates existing copper lighting and optional native storm sea, without spawning raid creatures. Local previews remain visual only.
• Add FR/EN/RU/ZH command feedback and shared-event countdown, plus simulated multi-client tests covering authorization, synchronization and event lifecycle.
• Requires 0.5.7 on server and participating clients for the new global mode.

0.5.6

• Fix false devcommands rejection: Terminal.m_terminalInstance is an instance property, not a static singleton. Check actual command Context on execution and the real Console instance during preview lifetime.
• Preserve native IsCheatsEnabled calls, cheat/admin gates and installed permission patches; no new plugin dependency or privilege bypass.
• Correct the API double and add regression cases for authorized/revoked contexts, missing console and rejecting an unauthorized invoking context.
• No rendering, clock, network, wave, translation or configuration changes.

0.5.5

• Extend native ray suppression to ordinary nights and solar totality, with dawn/dusk blending and scoped restoration; retain planet colors/brightness and daytime rays.
• Add as_event solar|lunar|blood [seconds] and as_event off local visual previews, using native cheat/admin command gates. No time/config/network/raid mutations.
• Hold geometrically aligned eclipses at the current day fraction; show translated preview banners. Enforce day/night, horizon, feature and actual raid preconditions; cancel on expiry, world/permission changes or disable. Default 60 s, range 5–600.
• Keep 0.5.4 storm waves unchanged. The user reports successful live wave behavior.
• Include EN/FR/RU/ZH console help/messages and source-kit version consistency checks.

0.5.4

• Replace the 2.5-degree star/guide picking cone with projected pixel hit tests. Match star cores and guide anchors, use a separate thin-line tolerance, and account for viewport height, projection and configured stellar size.
• Show a member star's actual constellation separately; choose its main figure at Summer Triangle vertices. Handle Alpheratz's shared Pegasus corner correctly and identify Big Dipper members with Ursa Major.
• Keep single galaxy names, all four languages, catalogue positions/links, blood-moon lighting and orbital timing.
• Enable native storm wind/sea during nocturnal blood moons by default. The server setting BloodMoonStormSea disables it persistently; local hosts also have an F8 toggle. Native maximum wind affects waves, buoyancy and sails without forcing rain/clouds. Restore the latest natural target when the effect ends; explicit admin debug wind takes priority.
• Add an optional synchronized stormSea flag. Missing fields default to false for old servers; use 0.5.4+ on server and all clients for consistent storm wind.
• Keep source-kit release metadata synchronized, including manifest.json.

0.5.3

• Distinguish stars, constellations and asterisms at the reticle in EN/FR/RU/ZH. Keep object-label priority and avoid appending a nearby constellation to M31.
• Label Orion's seven prominent stars and Aldebaran with proper names and Bayer aliases; normalize the remaining Greek-letter designations in French.
• Fade the native SunShafts intensity to zero during a local blood moon, scoped to OnRenderImage with finalizer restoration and later-owner preservation. This targets the reported white cones; live visual confirmation is still required.
• No star positions, chart links, lunar texture, light colour, orbital cycles, saved preferences, graphics enable flags or server protocol changes.
• The supplied 0.5.2 log's captured quaternion traces enter Character.UpdateDebugFly; this release does not claim to fix those character-rotation errors.

0.5.2

• Complete Orion (head, arms, shield and a three-star sword guide), Cygnus wings, Gemini limbs, Aquila tail, Draco bends, Cepheus branches, Lyra triangle and Leo limbs using IAU / Sky & Telescope charts. Keep measured catalogue positions.
• Add 47 catalogue anchor labels: 178 identifiable stars, with all four languages. Keep the Grand Chariot and Summer Triangle as explicitly named asterisms.
• Solar occultation now ends with an opaque lunar silhouette, without drawing the lunar surface over it; ordinary solar glare vanishes at total coverage, and the corona is restricted to the immediate vicinity of totality.
• Eclipse-only lighting now dims/restores the cached ambient SH probe and the native EnvMan sun, solar-fog and ambient shader colour globals when available. Camera scopes preserve later writes by other mods.
• Log solar coverage, phase, altitude and apparent diameters at eclipse stage changes.
• Use explicit galaxy/cluster names in Observation as well as at the reticle.
• No server protocol, orbit, clock, lunar-surface asset or saved-setting changes.

0.5.1

• Complete Taurus with the Hyades, horns and body/leg extensions; complete Pegasus with both forelegs; expand Andromeda with its chart branches. Use IAU / Sky & Telescope chart-derived links and unchanged BSC5P star positions.
• Add 23 identifiable chart anchors (131 named stars total), translated in EN/FR/RU/ZH.
• Identify M31 explicitly as the Andromeda Galaxy, and M45 as the Pleiades cluster. Object labels no longer append a nearby constellation name. A guide is named when aiming at its line without an identified object.
• No server protocol, celestial-cycle, atmosphere, configuration or favorite changes.

0.5.0

• Correct Cygnus wing HR 7949 (Epsilon); retain HR 7615 (Eta) along the neck.
• Add ten constellation figures and optional Summer Triangle: 14 main figures + 1 asterism.
• Identify 108 catalogue stars, with full-figure reticle highlighting and adjustable idle guide brightness; save in favorites.
• Add full EN/FR/RU/Simplified Chinese localization using only Valheim's selected language, with live switching.
• Ship four external/embedded UTF-8 dictionaries with stable as_ keys, English fallback and format/tag validation.
• Prefer compatible loaded fonts, with installed Unicode/CJK fallback; wrap UI controls and banners.
• Preserve existing sky settings, favorites, blood-Moon rendering and raid protocol.
• Installer/package checks include all four translation JSON files.

0.4.4 — 2026-09-30

• Fix excessive raid darkness: retain at least 80% ambient, 70% directional-light intensity and 45% sky exposure before other effects, instead of 15% / 10% / 8%. Existing slider values are retained; new profiles default to 20% darkness.
• Replace subtractive copper tint with a luminance-preserving RGB transform, so blue nighttime lighting is actually recoloured instead of darkened further.
• Recolour and restore the cached ambient SH probe during raid camera passes; preserve later changes from other code and leave ambient mode unchanged.
• Apply temporary copper colour to the GPU Milky Way, radiance and particles during raids, returning to the saved palette afterward. Catalogue stars and planet tints stay independent.
• Add a FR/EN readable-copper button (copper on, strength 65%, darkness 20%), preserving other preferences and local blood-Moon opt-out.
• Log copper and darkness settings when raid status changes. No raid authority, clock or normal lunar-surface changes.

0.4.3 — 2026-09-30

• Add a persistent local blood-Moon toggle: fade out raid visuals without changing raids, server authority or other players.
• Add separate blood-Moon darkness 0–100% (default 65%), affecting sky exposure, ambient/fog RGB and main directional-light intensity; restore scoped lighting after each camera.
• Expose the actual raid-notice switch separately from Hati wording. Wait for sky texture readiness before starting a new notice timer; suppress notices when local raid visuals are disabled.
• Show blood-Moon status and server/local event differences in Observation, and log signal changes without per-frame spam.
• Keep the nighttime-only trigger: daytime raids do not force night or move the game clock. No server protocol change; this version does not fix debug-flight quaternion errors.
• Store the new options and notice preferences in both favorites, with FR/EN UI text.

0.4.2 — 2026-09-29

• Raise Milky Way brightness and dawn/dusk warmth maxima to 3 in both configuration and F8 controls.
• Preserve existing values, defaults, personal presets and favorite persistence; French and English labels retained.
• Include the eclipse, Astral Panorama and galactic controls introduced in 0.4.0–0.4.1 since the previous public release 0.3.3.

0.4.1 — 2026-09-29

• Extend Milky Way width to ×5, particle strength to 5, diffuse-object glow to ×5 and radiance to 300%.
• Add live Milky Way saturation 0–300% (default 100%), shared by its glow and particles; preserve star and planet colours.
• Prevent wide galactic halos from folding past the spherical poles.
• Reserve explicit space and automatic height for slider labels; clarify brightness versus width and name the Andromeda/Pleiades glow control in French and English.
• Preserve existing settings and add saturation to both personal favorites. Client-only changes; no server update needed from 0.4.0.

0.4.0 — 2026-09-29

• Add Astral Panorama / Panorama astral, based on observed personal settings.
• Add live Milky Way width, structure contrast, radiance, background stars and optional particles.
• Add opt-in inclined-orbit solar/lunar eclipses tied to displayed positions and shared world time.
• Preserve classic disc settings behind a separate linked eclipse size; keep raid diameter independent to 40.
• Add eclipse contact coverage, approximate alignment calendar and optional local start notice.
• Preserve classic lunar shading outside eclipses; add copper curved-umbra shading during lunar eclipses.
• Synchronize optional nodal-period metadata with backwards-compatible protocol 1 fields.
• Extend local persistence/favorites and deterministic calculation tests.
• Candidate for in-game validation; not automatically published.

0.3.3 — 2026-09-28

• Prepare the first public beta: catalogue installation docs, author publishing launcher and release-package verification. No additional runtime changes.

• Add press-and-hold repetition to all numeric −/+ buttons including UI scale: one immediate step, 0.4 s delay, then one step every 0.08 s; no catch-up bursts.

• Cancel on release, pointer exit, scroll, tab/language change, F8 close or focus loss. Preserve native IMGUI clipping/capture and themed button states.

• Confirm French-game / otherwise-English fallback and translate the remaining Andromeda observation label for the English UI.

• Preserve rendering, favorites, configuration keys and synchronization.

0.3.2 — 2026-09-28

• Replace persistent constellation names with one-second reticle identification on member stars or guide lines; anchor-only mode targets member stars only.
• Shared disc size scale: Sun 1–15/default 3, linked Moon 1–15/default 3.3; blood Moon 1–40/default 15; solar halo 2–15/default 2 with bounded alpha.
• Actual sliders and fine buttons; independent daytime exposure/tint saturation.
• Two persistent personal visual favorites with Save/Load/Overwrite; quality, interface and server configuration excluded from snapshots.
• Five live GPU Milky Way colour palettes; planet tint emphasis 0–2, warmer Venus and Saturn, coloured outer halos protected from full white exposure clipping.
• New size keys adopt requested defaults once on upgrade; other preferences stay.
• Harden sky orientations: direct orthonormal disc matrices, bounded finite quaternion normalization for light apply/restore, degenerate-axis handling.
• Capture at most three rotation-error diagnostics, requesting full Unity stacks temporarily if absent. The supplied 95,655 errors lack caller attribution; these changes do not prove AstralSkies was their source or that all are fixed.
• No changes to gameplay input hooks, raid protocol or Gale import behavior.

0.3.1 — 2026-09-28

• Replace the GPU six-face sky rasterizer/native sampling with direct spherical meshes in a shared camera pass, followed by the coherent Sun/Moon.
• Use camera screen projection for both stars and labels. Guide names anchor to their member-star centroid; project labels after camera motion.
• Fade the procedural Milky Way to zero at its outer boundaries.
• Apply graphics quality in F8 without restarting; report active vs selected level. Quality controls halo/galactic geometry, refresh and lunar pixels. High and Ultra share the genuine 2048² lunar asset.
• Preserve configuration, existing input hooks, server protocol and Gale import.
• Development build: rendering, occlusion and visual result need Valheim checks.

0.3.0 — 2026-09-28

• Following the supplied screenshot: keep additive sky alpha fixed at one, use neutral HDR decoding for direct-radiance cubes, and soften overbright guide lines. These target rendering discontinuities; runtime seam correction remains unverified.

• Local blood-Moon diameter defaults to ×5, independent of the legacy server size. New persisted copper sky/fog/ambient tint with camera-scope restoration.

• Optional coherent solar/lunar discs: shared equinoctial reference cycle, phase offsets, full-Moon opposition and Sun-facing illuminated side. Raids smoothly move the fantasy full blood Moon toward opposition. Native discs remain fallback.

• Daytime sky tint/atmosphere refinement, analytic solar disc and halo, warm horizon colours; no weather-preset edits or new enemy/gameplay mechanics.

• Reticle identification after one second; bright stars, planets, diffuse objects, and coherent Sun/Moon. Horizon and solid-obstacle checks; no cloud optical test.

• Add Orion/Cygnus to progressive constellation guides, optional names and anchors-only.

• More galactic cloud structure; soft shower intensity ramps and occasional gold bolides.

• Independent Subtle/Immersive/Spectacular visual presets and four graphics levels: 512/1024/2048/4096 px per cube face, 10/15/20/30 Hz; lunar 512/1024/2048/2048.

• Reproject the original NASA maps into a genuine 2048-pixel lunar source; lower levels load sampled rows. CPU star fallback is capped at 1024; HDR cube memory estimates shown. GPU allocation retries smaller sizes before CPU fallback.

• Explicit automatic config saving, verified with actual BepInEx config reloads. Preserve interface/theme/position and personal blood size across visual presets.

• Camera-render errors restore native rendering and stop repeated failed callbacks. Existing input hooks and server protocol remain unchanged.

• Compilation, mathematical/config persistence and resource checks pass. The new sky pass, lighting, weather occlusion, reflections and performance need game tests.

0.2.5 — 2026-09-28

• New defaults for stronger field exposure, larger stars and brighter/larger planets with stable soft halos and distinct tints; modest normal-Moon size/light boost.
• Thicker segmented constellation guides, anchor-star and Polaris highlights.
• Procedural Milky Way cloud/dust structure, approximate Andromeda and Pleiades glow. These are artistic meshes, not photographic survey assets or exoplanet systems.
• Longer adjustable twilight envelope with exact daytime blackout; bright GPU points persist later into dawn than faint stars and diffuse objects.
• Deterministic regular meteor starts (6/min by default), 1.4–2.6 s continuous trails, 40 s shower launch windows every 120 s of world time at night. Preserve server rate zero and allow trails to finish at window boundaries.
• F8 Details controls and Observation countdowns/deep-sky coordinates; existing themes, drag, 50% scale, input protection, lunar assets and Gale import retained.
• New config keys preserve existing preferences; local cosmetic meteor density may differ per player. CPU fallback has simpler features, documented explicitly.
• Compile/math/assets/installer helper checks pass; new visuals and performance need in-game validation. No new Harmony hooks or server protocol changes.

0.2.4 — 2026-09-27

• Drag the F8 panel by its title bar; the close-button column is excluded.
• Store normalized window position on drag release/close; keep the panel on screen across resolution and scale changes. Add Center window in the Interface tab.
• Lower the interface scale minimum from 80% to 50%; retain the 140% maximum and 10-point steps. Preserve existing saved scale/theme settings.
• No new gameplay hooks or renderer changes in this release.

0.2.3 — 2026-09-27

• Fix the 0.2.2 conflict with Jotunn GUIManager: remove AstralSkies' camera and inventory transpilers. Native Menu.IsVisible call sites remain intact for other mods. Use prefix/finalizer consumer scopes with a scoped visibility postfix.
• Preserve original exceptions and release scopes through finalizers; release F8 input capture if panel drawing or input update throws.
• Fix lunar asset packaging: use an unambiguous moon_surface.gz source filename and WithCulture=false on both embedded assets; retain stable logical names.
• Validate both embedded resources and their SHA256 against the source assets in the compiled DLL before creating the Gale package. Refuse invalid builds.
• Keep astronomical star initialization independent of lunar asset failure; retain the native Moon and log the error if a lunar resource cannot be loaded.
• Show render readiness/GPU/fallback/failure status in F8 and explain the planet and constellation-guide switches. Includes the themes/daylight fixes from 0.2.2.
• Full game restart required after replacing 0.2.2. Current Valheim runtime and visual validation remain pending; see VALIDATION.md for actual executed tests.

0.2.2 — 2026-09-27

• Fix daytime star-field leakage with a local EnvMan daylight gate, smooth twilight envelope and exact black cubemap during daylight. GPU stars, planets, guides, galactic band and meteors share the gate; CPU fallback pixels also fade.
• Add runtime Harmony input protection for F8: player/controller input, mouse capture, camera/inventory menu checks, Escape and closing-click release guard. Capture resets on world exit, focus loss, disable and destruction.
• Replace the compact default panel with a centered, scalable FR/EN observatory: Sky / Observation / Interface tabs, themed controls and persistent configuration.
• Add Boreal Night, Nordic Bronze and Blood Moon themes, including hover/pressed/ selected states and scrollbars. Add daylight status to the observation panel.
• Extend Discord support text to improvement suggestions and external contributions.
• Add executable regressions for daylight boundaries/fades and modal input lifecycle. Actual game input hooks, visuals and Windows import remain to be verified.

0.2.1 — 2026-09-27

• Fix installer refusal when Gale is already open. Forward local import to its running instance, or open Gale; keep its UI running and verify asynchronously.
• Add up to 120 seconds of registration polling, retry transient read locks, and preserve metadata/version/DLL-hash verification. No loose-DLL fallback.
• Quote native Windows arguments, including profile names and paths with spaces.
• Prefer Unity FindObjectsByType with no sorting through a cached API adapter; retain an older-Unity fallback without a deprecated compile-time call.
• Add original generated promotional icon, 256 × 256 package export and master.
• Add FR/EN presentation with Zephyrfit's Discord support link. Move extended technical notes into DEVELOPMENT.md.

0.2.0 — 2026-09-27

Development test kit, not yet validated in Valheim.

• Add five moving planets using JPL approximate orbital elements and shared world days.
• Add GPU catalogue rotation around celestial north, adjustable north calibration, grouped scintillation, moonlight washout and a static CPU fallback.
• Replace CPU meteor uploads in GPU mode with small radial meshes; varied lifetimes, speeds and optional periodic showers with a shared radiant.
• Increase NASA lunar disc to 1024²; phase-dependent earthshine and worker shading.
• Add F8 local panel with optional Big Dipper/Cassiopeia guides and predicted altitude/azimuth for planets and Polaris.
• Add independent HideYggdrasil / HideClouds options, both off by default, and Vanilla + mod / Panorama buttons. Camera-time overrides restore original flags.
• Require registered local Gale import; verify profile metadata and DLL hash, remove unmanaged DLL fallback, and add Zephyrfit author metadata.
• Add optional Hati notice. Preserve server-authoritative blood moon and ×3 size.
• Extend pure math tests with Kepler residuals, north/east orientation, photometry ordering, meteor lifetimes and an independent Horizons Jupiter comparison.

0.1.0 — 2026-09-27

First test build. BSC5P catalogue sky, NASA LROC/LOLA lunar surface and phases, shared shooting-star schedule, server-authoritative full copper blood moon with 3x size during nocturnal random raids, FR/EN notice, Gale source installer.

Compilation and core protocol/math tests checked; in-game validation pending.