What’s New in TPE Web 4.9: Beautiful Skies, Distant Horizons

TPE Web 4.9 brings a major upgrade to the 3D planning experience, with more realistic skies, improved atmospheric effects and much more detailed terrain at extreme distances.

It also introduces powerful new sky planning tools for nightscape and deepscape photographers, split-screen maps for precise camera positioning and a host of improvements to photographic planning workflows.

Whether you’re planning a Moon rising over a distant mountain range, searching for deep-sky objects that align with a landscape, or exploring how twilight will illuminate a city, TPE 4.9 offers new ways to discover, visualise and refine your compositions.

Note: some of the features discussed below require a MAX subscription.

A new sky for TPE Web

The sky is one of the most important elements in outdoor photography. Its changing colour, brightness and appearance can transform a landscape, sometimes within just a few minutes.

TPE 4.9 introduces a substantially redesigned sky model in the 3D views, producing more natural transitions through daylight, golden hour, twilight and night.

More realistic twilight

The new sky responds dynamically to the Sun’s position, with a brighter glow around the Sun during daylight, warmer colours as it approaches the horizon, and richer transitions through twilight.

As the Sun sets, the glow becomes concentrated closer to the horizon while the upper sky gradually darkens.

Dawn and dusk are treated according to the Sun’s changing position, allowing you to explore the development of morning and evening light as you move through time.

*The pre-sunrise glow seen from Longs Peak, Colorado, with the new sky model illuminating the horizon above.

Earth’s shadow and the Belt of Venus

The new sky model also represents two characteristic twilight phenomena: Earth’s shadow and the Belt of Venus.

Around sunrise and sunset, Earth’s shadow can appear as a blue-grey band above the horizon opposite the Sun, with a pinkish band of scattered sunlight above it.

These effects change with the Sun’s altitude, helping you plan compositions that make use of the subtle colours and contrasts of twilight.

Early morning over Venice, showing the interplay between the new twilight sky, distant terrain and illuminated buildings.

Moonlit skies and changing star visibility

The night sky now responds to the Moon’s phase and position.

A bright Moon raises the apparent brightness of the sky, while a thin crescent produces a subtler effect. As twilight fades, stars emerge progressively, with faint stars and Milky Way detail becoming more visible as the background darkens.

A new Moonlit sky option in the 3D Lighting controls lets you disable the simulated moonlit sky brightness when you want to examine the celestial background without that effect.

The result is a more useful representation of the changing night sky for planning Milky Way, nightscape and moonlit landscape photography.

Moonlight and the surrounding sky above the Andes. The Moon’s position, illumination and the changing sky brightness can all be explored at different times.

More accurate horizons and distant terrain

TPE 4.9 significantly improves the accuracy and range of terrain in the 3D First Person View, particularly for long-focal-length compositions.

At telephoto focal lengths, relatively small errors in the shape or elevation of a distant ridgeline can make a significant difference to a planned alignment.

TPE now adjusts the level of terrain detail according to your focal length, concentrating additional detail where the distant skyline needs it most.

See further, with greater precision

Terrain can now extend hundreds of kilometres from the camera, including distant peaks that rise above the observer’s local horizon.

At extreme distances, accurately representing the shape of the skyline is particularly challenging. A small loss of terrain detail can cause distant peaks to disappear or appear in the wrong position, especially when using a long telephoto lens.

The improvements in 4.9 are illustrated by this remarkable 443 km sightline from Pic de Finestrelles in the Pyrenees towards Pic Gaspard in the French Alps, using a simulated 733 mm full-frame focal length.

Before TPE Web 4.9: distant terrain is poorly resolved, producing fragmented, flattened features along the skyline.

With TPE Web 4.9: higher-detail terrain rendering resolves distant peaks and ridgelines much more clearly, even at 443 km.

By increasing terrain detail according to focal length and extending the rendered scene to include distant visible peaks, TPE makes it possible to explore and evaluate extraordinary long-distance compositions with much greater confidence.

Distant buildings and skylines

The same improvements extend to 3D buildings.

TPE can now render buildings far beyond the previous 30 km limit, allowing you to explore distant skylines such as Chicago from across Lake Michigan. Buildings hidden entirely below the terrain or water horizon are excluded, while visible buildings are prioritised to keep rendering efficient.

This makes the First Person View more useful for planning telephoto compositions involving distant city skylines and individual landmarks.

With TPE Web 4.9: the Chicago skyline seen from over 80 km away, across Lake Michigan.

Atmospheric refraction and the changing shape of the Sun and Moon

TPE 4.9 includes substantial improvements to the astronomical calculations used throughout the application, particularly near the horizon.

Atmospheric refraction bends light as it passes through the atmosphere, altering the apparent positions of the Sun, Moon and other celestial objects. The effect becomes especially important for observers at high elevations, where the visible horizon may lie well below the astronomical horizon.

The updated calculations improve celestial positions, rise and set times, Visual Search, Shot Alignment, Target Visibility and Terrain Shadows.

A more realistic Sun and Moon near and below the horizon

Atmospheric refraction also changes the apparent shape of the Sun and Moon.

Near the horizon, light from the lower edge of the disc is refracted more strongly than light from the upper edge, making the disc appear vertically compressed. TPE’s 3D views now reproduce this effect.

At sea level, the Sun or Moon can appear approximately 15% shorter vertically near the horizon. From elevated viewpoints, the compression can be considerably greater.

Visual Search below the astronomical horizon

Visual Search now supports apparent altitudes down to -5°, making it possible to search for alignments below the astronomical horizon.

This is particularly valuable from elevated viewpoints, where the visible horizon lies below the horizontal plane through the camera.

We’ve also improved the accuracy and reliability of searches near due north, near the horizon and for celestial objects passing high overhead.

Discover nightscape compositions with Celestial Targets Sky View

Finding a suitable deep-sky target for a landscape composition can be a time-consuming process.

You might know the foreground you want to photograph, but which celestial objects pass through the right part of the sky? When are they visible? And will there be enough darkness and time to photograph them?

The new Sky View on the Celestial Targets page is designed to answer these questions.

Rather than checking individual targets and dates one at a time, you can explore where deep-sky objects travel across the sky from your chosen location and identify promising compositions much more quickly.

The Celestial Targets Sky View at Lake Sabrina, California, showing deep-sky object paths against the surrounding mountains.

Find targets that work with your landscape

The Sky View displays the paths of celestial targets against the surrounding landscape, helping you identify objects that pass through a particular part of the sky.

You can filter targets according to their position, brightness, type and observing conditions, including darkness, Moon separation and available capture time.

For MAX subscribers, a Position Window can be drawn directly in the 3D First Person View, allowing you to specify the part of the sky where you want a target to appear.

This changes the planning process from asking whether one particular object will work to discovering which objects offer viable photographic opportunities from your chosen location.

More ways to explore the celestial sphere

The Sky View also includes optional reference overlays, including:

• The path of the Galactic Centre
• Celestial poles, including Polaris and σ Octantis
• An equatorial grid with declination and hour-angle references

Field of View controls help you judge how objects will fit within your intended frame.

You can also save Shot Plans and Presets from the Celestial Targets Sky and Calendar tabs, making it easier to return to promising opportunities later.

Split-screen maps and docked planning views

TPE 4.9 introduces a more efficient way to work with two locations at once.

With Geodetics enabled, the main map can now be split into two independent maps, one centred on your camera position and the other on your subject.

Each side can be zoomed and panned independently, allowing you to refine both pin locations without repeatedly navigating between them.

This is especially useful for long-distance alignments, where precise camera placement may require examining roads, paths or terrain features at a very different scale from the distant landmark. The split view works with both the standard map and Google Maps, and supports the usual planning overlays.

Aligning the torch of the Statue of Liberty with the setting Moon using split view and the Alignment Tool.

Keep the map alongside the 3D view

The mini-map on the 3D, Moon Simulator, Eclipse Simulator and Celestial Targets pages can now expand into a docked map beside the main view.

Instead of switching pages to reposition a pin, you can adjust it on the map while immediately seeing the result in the adjacent planning view. The divider is adjustable, and the map can focus on either pin.

Faster map controls

You can now right-click anywhere on the map to open a context menu with useful planning actions.

From the menu, you can:

• Place the primary or secondary pin
• Swap the pins
• Aim the lens towards a location
• Centre the map or zoom to both pins
• Save the selected point as a location
• Copy its coordinates

The menu also displays the clicked point’s coordinates, distance and bearing from the primary pin.

These actions work on the standard map and Google Maps, including split view. Several are also available through the command palette.

Improved Field of View controls

The Freeform Field of View controls have been redesigned around diagonal Field of View and aspect ratio, replacing the previous separate horizontal and vertical sliders.

You can choose from common photographic formats including 3:2, 4:3, 1:1, 16:9, XPan and 6×17, then adjust the diagonal Field of View with a slider that works well at both wide-angle and telephoto settings.

TPE also shows the equivalent full-frame focal length.

Existing Shot Plans and shared links retain their original framing.

In 3D Orbit View, a new camera frustum visualisation helps you understand how the selected lens frames the landscape and sky from your camera position.

Moon phases in the date picker

The date picker now shows New Moon and Full Moon directly on the calendar, making it easier to identify useful dates for night photography. The dates are calculated for your selected location’s time zone.

You can also enter any year from 1 to 2999 directly, making historical and far-future planning easier.

Other improvements and fixes

TPE 4.9 includes numerous additional refinements:

• More consistent zoom levels between the standard map and Google Maps
• Improved planet rise, transit and set calculations, particularly during retrograde motion
• More reliable Moonrise and Moonset calculations at high latitudes
• More accurate waxing and waning Moon labels around New Moon and Full Moon
• Improved recovery from temporary account-server connection failures, preserving locally stored and unsynchronised planning data
• Better handling of failed 3D texture downloads
• Improved synchronisation and deletion of saved planning resources
• Walking in First Person View now preserves the direction you’re looking
• Improved accuracy and consistency across Shot Alignment, Terrain Shadows and Target Visibility
• Various interface and reliability improvements throughout the application

Plan more, explore further

TPE Web 4.9 brings together improvements in visualisation, astronomical accuracy and planning efficiency.

The new sky model makes it easier to explore the changing atmosphere from dawn to night. More detailed terrain and better refraction calculations improve the precision of difficult alignments. Celestial Targets Sky View opens up new ways to discover nightscape and deepscape opportunities, while split-screen maps and docked views help you refine those plans faster.

Whether you’re photographing a distant mountain, planning a Moon alignment over a city, or looking for deep-sky objects that complement a particular landscape, TPE 4.9 gives you more ways to find, evaluate and prepare for the shot.

Explore TPE Web 4.9 at app.photoephemeris.com.