Logbook entry

PERSEUS REACH 3306 PART 1/2 - THE EXPEDITION TO SEMOTUS BEACON (Trip #8)

Here we go again! One day behind the rest of the group I could finally depart from Sol and head for WP2 in the Bubble Nebula, just over 7 kylies west.

After about an hour travel from Sol I reached another great personal achievement as I passed a total travel distance of 1 MILLION LY's in my Elite career.

The first week of the expedition has passed and it is time for another massjump. As I couldn't join the first one from Sol, I definetely was not going to miss this one. We winged up around 30 ships and said goodbye to the great Bubble nebula, continuing deeper into the black. It's so nice and peaceful to be out here exploring again, super excited of what lies ahead!


And to my big surprise I also won the first round of the Perseus Reach photo contest in the "Rare Gems" category with this "Nebula through a black hole" picture.

Many ships started gathering up at the basecamp the night before leaving, enjoying the beautiful view.


Moving on in another massjump towards WP4.

• 30 Neutron stars
• 70 Water worlds
• 7 Ammonia worlds
• 6 Earthlike worlds

We have been out here for over a month now and It's been a week since we left WP4. The stretch to WP5 was done much quicker than expected so I arrived way ahead of the others. It's almost two weeks until our next official meetup, so I have to come up with something to do in the meantime. How about some more exploring?

Found a nice spot at the waypoint to spent the night and decided to go visit the outer areas of the Perseus arm the next day.


Discovered this really nice ringed ELW on my way.


From WP5 I had plotted the course to the north-west, leaving the Vulcan Gate region for a short stretch into the Errant Marches before finally entering the Outer Arm region. I decided to start searching for new Class-O stars and started bookmarking all these "glowing" dots in the galmap that I was located along the route.

As I was getting closer to the next waypoint I had to make a decision where to go next. The meetup on WP6 is three whole weeks away so I have all the time in the world until then. Colonia is 16000LY's away and a massive detour, but absolutely possible without interfering with the expedition. And as my friend commander Asu Dragon is on his very first explorer trip and heading for Colonia, probably arriving tomorrow, I made the decision; let's head for Colonia for a rendez vous!  But now it's time to land for the night to do some more detailed planning for the route.

Left early the next day to go hunting for O-stars.

"Those who seek, shall find...!!"
Shortly after crossing into the Perseus Arm region I was getting close to my first marked Class-O system and as I found an undiscovered Neutron star system before the last jump , my hope was rising. Could this be it?

EUREKA!!! And there it was! At almost 33 kylies from home I had finally found my first Class-O star!
Super excited and inspired of today's great discoveries I called it a day and decided to continue the search tomorrow on the long way to Colonia.

41 days has passed since we left Sol and after my 16kylies detour from the Outer Arm to Colonia, crossing three regions, I woke up to a beautiful day on Jaques Station. Took a nice long shower and went down for breakfast. It's always nice to see some civilisation and other people again after beeing out in the black for a longer period of time. My friend CMDR Asu Dragon had arrived a few days earlier and was busy doing business with the local engineers. I will be staying here in Colonia for about a week before heading back out to rendez vous with the expedition.

Did a status check and some small repairs on the "Limo-Nade" before heading down to the Universal Cartographics office to sell my 2 billion credits worth of explorer data. The paintjob will (of course) remain untouched until the expedition is over


As I was arriving Colonia from the west and not by the main "highway" from the bubble, there was much more undiscovered places along the way. I even found a few special systems that might be worth reporting to the Galactic Mapping project:

- Very small Ammonia world only 0.0927 earthmasses. That must be very close to the record.
- Brown dwarf with a 18 million km ring radius
- Binary terraformable WW's orbiting just 0.9LS from each other. Discovered just 926LY's from Colonia.

Pretty close!


I've also found a few other Class O-stars, some ELW/AMW's and a whole lot of WW's. Even discovered a system with two Helium Rich Gas giants.
A nice looking ringed AMW. You don't see them like this one every day.


Spent most of the week on engineering the "Rocinante"; my Krait Phantom which I bought during the last visit here in 3305 on my "Rediscovering trip" to SagA*. She is a multipurpose ship with two sets of outfit for both combat and mining, but right now I am working on finishing up the combat outfit.

My friend CMDR Asu Dragon who arrived a few days before me had transferred his fully combat-modded Alliance Chieftain all the way from Jameson Memorial, so we decided to help out doing a wing mission, getting rid of some enemies. This was a nice opportunity to test out the Rocinante in some real combat for the first time.
An hour later, almost without a scratch we had destroyed 35 ships, from DBX's to Anaconda's and completed the mission. Headed back to Jaques to collect a nice reward, some gained reputation and called it a day. Awesome action!

Time for another logbook update as it's been a while since my last one. From WP9 I crossed the Newtons Vault region and took a planned detour to explore the Hieronymus Delta region before entering the Formorian Frontier region towards waypoint 10 at Dante's Inferno.

Besides some new ELW's there has been a few other interesting discoveries along the way as I found a giant ringed Ammonia world at 158 earthmasses and this nice looking metalrich world with an extremely thin ring.


Arrived WP11 for my second visit to Thomaski Point Memorial, paying my respects to this fallen commander. My first visit here was almost three years ago, during my first trip to Beagle Point in 3303.

Landed at the basecamp for the night and had the whole place to myself as no one else had showed up yet.

After a short stop at WP11 I continued towards the "Grand Rings" at WP12 and landed on 3 A for the night to enjoy the awesome view of the close rings.


The next morning I decided to take a 4000LY's detour eastbound for a visit to "Solitude Worlds"; an ELW system with triple WW's (two in binary orbit) discovered during my first trip to Beagle Point. Finding ELW systems out here this close to "the edge" of the galaxy is not an everyday find, so my rare discovery was reported to the GMP and registered as a "Planetary feature" POI in EDSM.

Great sunset view from one of the geosites on planet A 3 A.

Returned to WP12 to rejoin with the expedition. Landed at the basecamp where some of the others had arrived.


You can't get a much more spectacular view than this for a massjump!

After a week of exploring high above the galactic plane finding some undiscovered gems, I could finally deploy my landing gear and touch down on Beagle Point for my third visit and it's the same good feeling every time I come to this special place at the edge of the galaxy. My last visit here was over a year ago where Beagle Point was set as the finish line for the Distant Worlds 2 expedition.


And a really nice surprise was to find the first fleet carrier that had made it all the way out here. I got my landing clearance from the "Nanachi" and to land on a fleet carrier for the very first time was an awesome experience, and so cool that it would be here at Beagle Point. The Limo-Nade is still in great shape after traveling over 150 kylies and just needed some minor repairs and maintenance. I also got the chance to sell my explorer data, earning a few more billions since Colonia. And for this carrier to make it all the way to Beagle Point, I would gladly pay my 25% tax to the owner!


After a few hours on the Nanachi, I departed and landed at a quiet place to spend the night until the big day tomorrow.

After more than four months of travel the Perseus Reach expedition is nearly completed as we winged up in space outside BP to do the last jumps to Semotus Beacon & Salome's Reach.


We're here! A bunch of "fireflies" approaching our last and final basecamp on B 9 F, the most distant reachable planet in the galaxy to this day and the finish line for this awesome journey!