19 Jul 2020Baroness Galaxy
Previous entry - Preparation Day"Magnesium"
19 July 3306, I left the DSSA Ironside at Plaa Aec RY-B b41-1 and plan to arrive at CSI-61-15434, also know as "The Octarine Plains", the first waypoint of the Saggitarius expedition 4 years ago.
Once there, I will land in "Camp 2a" within the NGC 5979 system and meet what was once a place of discovery for notable explorers like CMDR Corbin Moran. The board computer tells me 111 jumps... well, who knows what I find along the way, and I get more excited when I read the description of my point of arrival:
NGC 5979 is a planetary nebula of a little over ⅔ of a light-year across, located in the southern constellation of Triangulum Australe (the Southern Triangle). On the third planet in the system, the unique mix of the colors from the dying star and the nebula combine to give the nightside that magical greenish-yellow purple color...
Between camp 2a and 2b is another (but hard to reach) planetary nebula: the NGC 5307 nebula centered on the CD-50 8073 system. CMDR Draco84oz who scouted camp 2a and 2b in a DBX reports that there's a gap in the starfield app. 35ly deep that is difficult to bridge without jumponium or flying a stripped down Asp or Anaconda. Its location would make for a great viewpoint, so please make a post and share some images if you reach this system.
Landing site : Octarine Plains
Orbital body : 3
Surface coordinates : 56.69 / -41.71
Surface Gravity : 1.53g
Let's do what they ask, take a picture once there
Discoveries en route
On my way there, I took it upon myself to find planets that are interesting for a rock rat, specifically, hunting planets that have a higher yield of a planetary material found thus far in the entire galaxy. Of course, I'll take note of jumponium systems, golden systems or any other notable discovery that catches my eye.
But my primary goal is to find the highest yields out there.
Finding 1 - A very old orange dwarf
This star is notable, relative to similar class K stars, with an unusually old age of just over 13 billion years, making it one of the oldest stars in the galaxy.
One of the oldest stars in the galaxy? Let's check. From the game's point of view, EDDI is correct, searching in EDDB shows this is a very rare find. Cool!
I was curious though, so also looked up high K-dwarf age in reality and NASA explains that these orange dwarfs live from 15 billion to 45 billion years.So in reality, my finding is not really old at all, but game-wise it is, so still a nice discovery.
Jumponium discoveries en route
Green system, all jumponium mats
https://www.edsm.net/en/system/id/54977144/name/Nyeakaa+TY-Q+d5-21
https://www.edsm.net/en/system/id/55189278/name/Nyeakaa+ZM-M+b23-0
Gold system, all planetary mats
https://www.edsm.net/en/system/id/54968628/name/Nyeakaa+RN-G+c12-7
https://www.edsm.net/en/system/id/54977923/name/Nyeakaa+HX-L+b24-0
https://www.edsm.net/en/system/id/55075126/name/Nyeakaa+BW-O+b22-1
https://www.edsm.net/en/system/id/55189188/name/Nyeakaa+LD-H+c11-2
Arrival
1st of August 3306, I arrived at my first waypoint and immediately got astounded. This system is actually a fast burning Wolf-Rayet star! These are very rare to find and also interesting, it has an unusually old age of well over 10 billion years and an extremely high surface temperature of over 121.000 Kelvin.
But it doesn't stop there...
Finding 2 - Very large deposits of Manganese
When I scanned the 3rd planet, which is in fact the planet that serves as the location for camp 2a, diagnostic results showed it's a metal-rich planet with very large deposits of Manganese: 16.4%! Now, to put that number in perspective, the highest yield found in the galaxy so far is 17.36%, you won't easily find yields like that, in fact, you can be quite happy if you reach 15+% since those are top 10% finds.
So dear reader, let it be noted, that this is my first rock rat discovery!
To wrap things up, let's land on the thing and make a picture set this journey in stone...
Journey so far
Onwards then, towards camp 2b in NGC 5315, a 2000 LY further ahead on the expedition route and hopefully... to find even better yields on my way to CMDR TwoFingers
