I found these wonderful images made available by the European Southern Observatory:
http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/fulldome/
Some are VERY high resolution!
So I tried applying one to the inside of a sphere, set to 100% luminous, no diffuse, and used a 1080P camera with AA set to 25. I* used planar mapping on the Y axis.
These images are what I got out. The only adjustments I made were autocontrast.
I think they would look even better if I darkened them a bit.
As usual, click on an image to see it full size. 
Continue reading “Test renders of all sky map from the ESO”