adding a sky into the scene

We are using a painted sky because we did not want the lights which we are setting up in our scene to be affected by additional light coming from the sky (which is what would happen when using a hdri image). So, by painting this image and applying it as a texture to a dome, this way the sky will not emmit it'sa own light and a simple point light can be used and positioned in front of the moon in order for it to appear to have it's own light source.

Here I just wanted to show that the image is attatched onto a band of faces arounf the dome. The image does not stretch or distort to the top. When the lighting is set properly, there is no abvious seam where the image stops and the matte black faces begin. This is why the sky gradually becomes darker towards the top.