The Final Stretch
13 Dec 2016Robert Phillips
Having decided to head back towards the bubble of populated space, I mark my journey with a few waypoints that take me through some interesting sections of space.First up, an otherwise unremarkable O-type star at '2MASS J02302948+6119446' provides some lovely views from a landable planet orbiting a ringed gas giant:
And a binary pair of ringed landable planets in the nearby star of '2MASS J02330317+6128468' creates an eerie blue/purple glow over everything:
I seem to be drawn to interesting looking nebula, and checking my stellar cartogrpahic resources, I lookup the Bow-Tie Nebula. It's tiny, and it's only possible to see it as a small blue blob from it's nearest neighbour, or from inside the nebula itself:
It's heart is a Wolf-Rayet C type star, which is exceptionally big and bright.
My attention then moves to the NGC 7822 Nebula, in the constellation Cepheus, which has a line of hot O-type stars running through. The line is so distinct, and appears to go right through the heart of the nebula, a tourist beacon at 'S171 46' refers to it as "Cupid's Arrow":
Then, a quick visit to the Ring Nebula:
Like the Bow Tie Nebula, the Ring Nebula is tiny. Unfortunately, it's impossible to get into the heart of it as there is no star at it's centre to jump to, but this was the closest I could get.
My final nebula visit was to the Veil West Nebula, in the constellation Cygnus. It is a blue/pink nebula with an unusual shape and colour compared to most other nebulae. It provides some interesting contrasting colours and effects to it's surrounding star systems, and the systems contained within it:
And then it was time to return to the bubble. For real this time.
I wanted to get my thrusters enhanced by Professor Palin, and I've been craving a bit of action of late. Exploration is a wonderful experience, and I will return to it soon. But for now, I want to earn some credits and rank. Next time I head out to explore, it will be in an Anaconda.