Gone to Colonia - LOG 06, Visiting Gravity Betrothed.
26 Jul 2022Kris Afron
For my previous exploration loops around Colonia I used a spreadsheet to plot the co-ordinates for the journey waypoints, but it limited me to doing a circular loop in a plane at right angles to the galactic plane. So I searched Galnet for something that would plot me a circular route through three points. I came up with an app called GeoGebra which is basically a 3D geometric plotting utility.I used it to set up the galactic co-ordinate system and added Colonia as a point in space and then added two more destinations using ED Astrometrics POI facility. Then GeoGebra plotted me a nice circular route taking in the POI's. Great!
So I set off on another journey, this plot shows the loop (with an additional side trip) and this log describes the first of the POI's - Gravity Betrothed.
Gravity Betrothed or Drumboa AA-A h73 has a ringed Neutron Star orbiting a pair of Black Holes.
With eight other stars/brown dwarfs orbiting the same black holes it is quite a spectacular system. There are plenty of opportunities for adding to the snapshot album, especially with the system being well above the galactic plane so the view of the galaxy from here is something to see.
This is the ringed Neutron Star,
and the Black Holes provide some nice distortion effects.
Journey log to be continued...
For now, CMDR Kris Afron signing off. Fly safely commanders.