Exploration - 2.2 - Week 32 3307
15 Aug 2021Sumurai8
[09 08 3307 | Inferred location: Graneae HG-V d3-80]Not much to report today. I am trucking along through unexplored space. Locked in another black hole earlier, next to a neutron star, but no nice photo opportunities and of the same class as my first black hole. After reaching that I set my waypoint on a black hole without any other stars. Curious what I will find. Eventually I get to Sag A*.
I'm currently in a system with planets circling around each other, and moons that have their own moons. I am making a pit stop at a planet with 6 distinct biological signals. Should provide at least some nice data, and perhaps a nice picture or two.
[10 08 3307 | Inferred location: Graneae HD-H d11-308]
Crossed over into the Empyrian Straits just now. It's space just like any other. Got lucky and got my hands on another 3 terraformable HMC's and an ELW. That's gonna fetch me a pretty penny.
[10 08 3307 | Inferred location: Speamoea JH-V f2-2]
/!\ Danger Danger Danger /!\
/!\ Emergency dropdown /!\
/!\ [Lifepod armed] /!\
Oof. That was a shock. I accidentally left the throttle up while jumping into a system with a black hole and hit the exclusion zone. And I have to say, this is both beautiful and terrifying.
/!\ Diagnostics completed: 174 non critical defects /!\
/!\ Ship jump capable. Replace fuse 7.003, 13.102 and 19.881. List of defects follows. /!\
/!\ [Lifepod disengaged] /!\
Well, at least the ship is still in one piece, even if the shock broke stuff in every single system. It also looks like I can still jump out, which means the navigation computer must have been able to get my out of hyperspace before I passed the event horizon. I've been really lucky.
The view out of my front window is magnificent. The gravitational bending of stars is all-encompassing. I never realised I could get this close to a black hole and I will certainly try to get closer to future ones in a more... controlled... manner. For now I just leave you with this picture.
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT in Inara Gallery
[11 08 3307 | Inferred location: Schienaei TO-Q e5-935]
I just encountered my first Herbig Ae/Be star. Had to look that one up in the data banks. This one is a bit hotter than the average Ae/Be, but fairly small and light. Visually it is just like any other star really. No circumstellar disks of any kind and no clouds of material that I can see.
[11 08 3307 | Inferred location: Schienaei JH-V f2-480]
Made a nice picture of the ship with another black hole. There's some nice gravitational lensing going on. I think I'll ease off on making pictures of black holes in the future. It is still magnificent, but they all kind of look the same.
GRAVITATIONAL LENSING in Inara Gallery
[11 08 3307 | Inferred location: Schienaei ZV-B d14-117]
It's been a long day. I've set down on a planet to map some local fauna. There's a moon (of the moon I am currently on) on the horizon, so I set up my camera to capture the rover in a massive field of grass. Well, the scientists call it Tussock Pennatis. I think the photo came out nicely. The horizon seems a bit crooked, but otherwise I like how the composition turned out.
THROUGH A SEA OF GRASS in Inara Gallery
[11 08 3307 | Inferred location: Scheau Flyue XO-A f220]
I know I said in my previous entry that it was a long day. And I did consider turning in for the night on that surface planet. It's much nicer to sleep in a bunk with some amount of gravity, than having to strap yourself in to not float out.
But when looking at my nav computer I noticed that I was so close to reaching my wapoint that I decided to push on. My waypoint this time is a set of three systems that I selected from data from the Deep Space Survey. This system has a black hole in it. It's slightly heavier than what I have encountered so far. The second system has a black hole and a DC0. The black hole here is nothing special. The white dwarf is relatively cold and relative large compared to the average star of that type. I had high hopes for the third system. I specifically selected it because it had 6 stars in it. You would think that chances are high to encounter something nice in there, but when actually arriving it turned out it's just those 6 stars and nothing else. What a bummer.
[12 08 3077 | Inferred location: Scheau Flyue ZE-Z e952]
Second set of 3 systems reached. I chose three systems with rare white dwarfs this time around. System 1 contains plenty of planets, but nothing valuable really. Fun fact about this white dwarf is that it has an orbit with a length of about 3.5 million days. Not going to wait around for that one. Not much to say about the other 2 systems.
[12 08 3077 | Inferred location: Eachaitts XF-V d3-1257]
Quietly trucking along. This system is quite nice. Only 9 bodies plus the star, but 4 valuable systems for me to scan.
[12 08 3077 | Inferred location: Eachaitts BM-T d4-856]
Forget having 4 valuable systems. I was going to turn in for the night. Now I have 6 terraformable HMC's and a water world to scan. Oh the humanity! I guess I will just have to scan these now for the 18.something million credits I will get.
[13 08 3307 | Inferred location: Eachaitts NO-Q e5-98]
Another day, another waypoint. Found another system with 6 stars. Should be filled with hundreds of bodies, right?
Nope. No it doesn't. This is the second 6-star dud this trip.
[13 08 3307 | Inferred location: Phrio Prue ZE-A g274]
Encountered my largest black hole to date. This one has a little over 13 solar masses, and a radius that actually has a visible significant digit. Nothing close to record breaking, but still nice.
[13 08 3307 | Inferred location: Phrio Prue BF-Z e693]
6 star systems are just cursed. I thought third time would be the charm, but after visiting this system I just got one metal rich body circling these stars. I can't help but go for these kind of systems though. It's so rare to land in such a system.
[13 08 3307 | Inferred location: Phrio Prue DV-W d2-996]
And as I say that, I promptly randomly arrive in a 6 star system that has plenty of planets, and 3 valuable ones. Granted, those planets are 200k ly away, but they exist. I guess I should just not plot routes directly towards them and things are fine. At least, that is what superstition would say.
[14 08 3307 | Inferred location: Phrio Prue ZU-Y f691]
Crossed over into the Galactic Center region at last. I circled a bit to the right, so this last stretch to Sagittarius A* should be fairly fast. I look forward to looking at this stellar phenomenon, and visiting the tourist beacon and station.
[14 08 3307 | Location: Sagittarius A*]
I reached it. I finally reached it. It has been a two week journey. Sure, I could have taken a much faster route, and taken the neutron highway, but what is the fun in that? Time to visit the beacon, the station, and hand in my biological data to Vista Genomics. Also a good time to stretch my legs, and enjoy some time outside of my badly beaten up tin can. I wonder what the bill will be to fix the 174 defects the computer told me about a couple of days ago. And the paint. And the grooves in the body work from when I clipped a couple of rocks on a planet. And the worn out pads in the FSD. And recalibrate the FDS booster. And...
...it's going to cost me quite a bit isn't it?
Elite Dangerous: Exploration Week 32 - Sagittarius A* on Imgur
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[14 08 3307 | Inferred location: Myrielk BQ-G c10-258]
Alright, I have set out in the general direction of the bubble again. Not a direct route, and not via the neutron highway. Not yet at least. There's still space to be explored, and I will go mad if I have to look at over a hundred neutron stars to get back home.
I've been quite lucky the last couple of systems with planets that have biological signals. This particular system has a planet with 8 of them, which is a record for me. I only found 7 of them, and I am not sure what the 8th signal was for, but it should give me some credit and status with Vista Genomics when I get back to the bubble.
WHERE'S MY HORSE WITHOUT A NAME? in Inara Gallery
[15 08 3307 | Inferred location: Zuni QS-U e2-316]
I encountered a system with many stars, where two formed a binary system on their own. The interesting part is that one of them was a Herbig Ae/Be, while the other was a full-blown B-class star. The size difference is immense.
HERBIG AE/BE VERSUS REGULAR B-CLASS STAR in Inara Gallery
[15 08 3307 | Inferred location: Wepe PK-C c14-363]
Waypoint reached. I moved out of the way of the main routes back to the bubble, and will now once again be making my way towards the bubble. I have decided to visit as many supergiants and regular giants as I possibly can. Maybe I can find a record on this route. And if nothing else, I can enjoy some truly massive stars on my way back.
[15 08 3307 | Inferred location: Wepe DL-Y f4532]
Stop 1. This is just a couple of jumps from my last waypoint, and I still have 16 others queued up. They are all actual giants (mostly IAB/IB), bright giants in the form of IIAB or just larger regular stars/regular giants in the form of IIIAB. I even threw in a few particularly hot or cold T-Tauri's in the mix.
Anyway, back to this system. It has a B9 IAB in it. B-class star. 9 means particularly cold. I means it is a super giant. AB means it is a bit brighter than average. It's hard to capture the sheer size of this thing.
Elite Dangerous: B-class Super Giant on Imgur
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