Arrival at Eta Carinae
10 Oct 2020FiveStringJeff
Woke up on the last planet I mapped, an HMC revolving around a brown dwarf in the Col 228 Sector.
I recalculated my route to Eta Carina. 15 jumps? I didn't realize I was making such good time. Seems like just a couple of days ago, I was in the Eskimo Nebula staring at a black hole and figuring out how I was going to get my first Elite rank.
One or two systems before resting for the night, I had noticed something new in the sky: a bright star cluster. As I continue on, the cluster begins to transform from a white streak to a few dozen very bright stars.
A little bit of digging around shows me this is the NGC 3293 Open Star Cluster. It's filled with Class O and B stars - exactly the thing I'm looking to explore! It's now my next destination - after Eta Carinae, that is.
A few more unremarkable jumps, and I'm there. So are three fleet carriers! None of the commanders are home, but thankfully, I'm able to dock and sell data. I land on the Betty Boop (K1L-58Z - thanks, CMDR Kolumbus!) and sell 66 million credits worth of data. That's about 1/3 of what I needed to make Elite. I'm relieved that it's in the bank - losing all that data would have been tragic. Even better, I'm now the first to have discovered another 100 or so systems. My total is about 140 now.
Eta Carinae is bathed in the blue light of two O Class stars. It sits in view of more galactic features than you can fit in one photo, but the Eta Carina Nebula is very noticeable.
The only planet in the system has biological signals - the first I've come across in the OOS. They turn out to be space pumpkins. A little bit of scanning in the SRV and I've picked up a new codex entry.
I think I've found everything Eta Carinae has to offer. My next target is the star cluster I spotted on the way. It's less than 300 ly away, so the stars are easy to pick out.
But, as calming as this system is, maybe I'll just hang out here for a little bit more...