Barnard's Loop and Beyond
18 Sep 2018AlienAgent
I made it to the Orion and Running Man Nebula, explored around a bit then proceeded on to the Flame Nebula and Barnard's Loop proper. I explored around there a bit as well, found a system with a Neutron star - overall nothing too exciting. But these views, the vistas, continue to blow me away - especially once I made it completely inside Barnard's loop and was engulfed, completely surrounded, by the beautiful colors of the nebula gas. It was very stunning. The backdrop of the very dark, ominous Horsehead Nebula made for a fantastic site. Speaking of the Horsehead Nebula, all of the systems in and around the nebula are locked. My navigation system will not lock on to any of these systems for me to jump into - very strange. I clearly see on my Galaxy Chart there are systems all around and within the Nebula, and they appear on my nav panel, yet I cannot make the selection to jump in. Not sure what's up with that. So then I proceed out / away from Barnard's Loop. I am heading out to an empty blank region of the galaxy (empty in the terms that there are only star systems and no Nebula in the region past Barnard's Loop I am going to.
I am going to be exploring some Messier 78 Sector / region systems to see what is contained within those. I would like to see more nebula for sure but Barnard's Loop was my goal for now and I reached it so I believe my next goal is just going to see how long I can stay out in deep space. It has only been a week since I left the bubble and I am still feeling great and the ship is holding up well so I don't see any reason to head back at the moment. The thought of selling all this exploration data is very enticing though but the longer I stay out here the more I will gather and the more it will be worth.
Something else I wouldn't mind doing is finding a system and planets yet to be discovered by anyone! That would be great, especially an earth like world, or even just a ammonia based life planet or a gas giant with life forms - ok anything really! So far everything I have come across has already been discovered and scanned, which is why I have made pretty fast paced progress to where I'm at to this point. I do scan the stars and significant planets in the system (High Metal Content, Water Worlds, Gas Giants, etc ... unless they are very far out from the main star), but beyond that I don't do much "exploring" per se - right now it is mostly sightseeing. If I ever do come across an undiscovered system I will be taking my time, scanning everything, getting all the data, looking at the numbers, comparing the numbers to Sol and other bubble systems, etc.