Help to find my little girl's star.

adamnwt

A
Hi there, I want to find my little girl's star that was given to her as a gift by her grandparents on her first Christmas. My goal is to travel to that star, take a high resolution screenshot of it and hang it next to her framed star chart. Unfortunately, I am having a hard time finding it in game or translating real world information into the game to better locate it. I apologize if this is the wrong avenue to inquire with the site and/or the development team.

I have made a reddit submission asking for assistance and I will try to make a forum post about it here asking for help as well.
http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/36sgfz/help_to_find_my_little_girls_star/

The star in question does not have a "name" according to several star databases, but it does exist in the sky. The star is near the "Lynx" constellation. Googling the information yields a star name of 2MASS J09081892+4531529. It's coordinates relative to earth are 09 08 18.92 +45 31 52.9. We punched in the galactic coordinates of (60:60:90) into the 3D map in the game but there was nothing there. The closest star was "Jath" but I don't think this is the one.

Relative to earth, the closest named star is HIP 44758 but this isn't very close to it. I can search that one in the game database though.

I'd love a helping hand if one can be provided. I think it would be an awesome project to do for her and when she grows up maybe she can appreciate space even more!

Thanks very much for your help.

And before anyone says it, I know that I can't own a star name, it's a scam, blah blah. This point is irrelevant to me.
 

Engadine

E
Great idea!

I did a search for 2MASS and it found 2MASS 1503+2525 on the Galaxy Map to begin with and then loads of others, but these had "-" in their names.

I tried changing the + in your name to a - but nothing came up.

Hope you find it!
 

Zieman

Zieman
Engadine said:
Great idea!

I did a search for 2MASS and it found 2MASS 1503+2525 on the Galaxy Map to begin with and then loads of others, but these had "-" in their names.

I tried changing the + in your name to a - but nothing came up.

Hope you find it!
Click to expand...
Closest I got was a bunch of 2MASS J0901xxxx+yyyyyyyy
 
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Zenith

Zenith
Okay, using the RA/dec from SIMBAD, it's in the southern part of Ursa Major where it meets Lynx.
If you take Kappa Ursae Majoris as one pointer, and 36 Lyncis as the other, 2MASS J09081892+4531529 is almost midway on an imaginary line between the two as seen from Earth.

Both stars exist in-game.
36 Lyncis is high up towards the north.
12 Kappa Ursae Majoris isn't quite as far north, but it heading in the same direction.


2mass.jpg

2mass2.jpg

2mass3.jpg

I can't find an exact star, partly because it's not included in the galaxy map, partly because the star is really between +12 and +16 magnitude (very faint, telescopes required).

The images comes from screenshots of the star from Google Sky

Sources / tools:
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=2MASS+J09081892+4531529
https://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/sky/
http://www.astrostudio.org/xhip.php?hip=45290
http://www.constellation-guide.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Ursa-Major-constellation-map.gif

=============================

[edit] I just located those 2 stars and got their approximate galactic coordinates.
12 Kappa Ursae Majoris is [-33:240:-263]
36 Lyncis is [-3:405:-416]

Taking one from the other gives 30:265:153
To find the mid point of an imaginary line between the 2 stars, divide those numbers by 2 and add them back to the previous coordinates.
30:265:153 /2 = 15:132:76
Approximate mid point of imaginary line is -18:372:-339

There's no star AT that coordinate, but there are 2 M class stars nearby.
Wregoe CI-S b33-0 , an M1VA star
Wregoe ED-S b33-0 , an M8V star.

In lieu of an actual named star in the game, you'd be within reasonable expectation to pick one of those 2 Wregoe stars and say that it is 2MASS J09081892+4531529.
 
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Murishani

Murishani
Zenith said:
Zenith being a science super-hero
Click to expand...

Great work CMDR Zenith! I suppose if the exact star isnt in the game, its reasonable to pick a procedural one in the same area. Would an M class be accurate? do we know what kind of star 2MASS J09081892+4531529 is?
 

adamnwt

A
You are magnificent.

Zenith said:
Zenith is the best.
Click to expand...

You are a magnificent person. I can't thank you enough for helping me out with this! I knew that the galaxy itself is only partially accurate (obviously.) I would be more than happy to accept your answer as a veritable solution. A procedurally generated star is good enough for my little girl and I.

Thank you so much.
 

Zenith

Zenith
Don't thank me yet... I made a schoolboy mistake in my arithmetic. You need to take 50 light years away from the middle number (it's 165 difference, not 265).

Corrected cordinates are [-18:322:-339].
Now I'm away from my PC until tonight, so perhaps someone else can take a look at that coordinate on galaxy map and see if there are any M class stars within about 10ly in any direction.

Sorry about that, but it was late for me when I posted. :)
 

dognosh

dognosh
Zenith said:
Don't thank me yet... I made a schoolboy mistake in my arithmetic. You need to take 50 light years away from the middle number (it's 165 difference, not 265).

Corrected cordinates are [-18:322:-339].
Now I'm away from my PC until tonight, so perhaps someone else can take a look at that coordinate on galaxy map and see if there are any M class stars within about 10ly in any direction.

Sorry about that, but it was late for me when I posted. :)
Click to expand...

+1 to you for all your posts here :)


here is the said area you calculated : (ignore, look below photo :D )

searcharea.jpg

- - - Updated - - -


EDIT :
and I too did a school boy error !!!!!

I screenshot -322 height not 322 lol :D
back in 5 ..........................
 
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Ziljan

Ziljan
This is the year 3301, and Stars don't stay still. Relative to the polar coordinates on earth, this star has a proper motion of -26.12, -26.35 milliarcseconds per year (Right Ascension, Declination). More importantly, we don't really know it's distance or it's radial velocity so tracking it down in a 3D galaxy would be very tough, since we are just going off of 1300 year old 2D information. That was a valiant effort by Zenith, but honestly, we don't have the interface in the game to track down stars this faint from the Sol System. Not unless someone has the spectral data on this star hidden somewhere with a redshift and distance estimate?

Just to be clear, you can't assume that a Star that is between two stars on a 2 D globe, will also be between those same 2 stars in a 3 D galaxy. It could be anywhere on that bisecting line. From 10LY to 1,000 LY or more.
 
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Murishani

Murishani
Ziljan said:
This is the year 3301, and Stars don't stay still. Relative to the polar coordinates on earth, this star has a proper motion of -26.12, -26.35 milliarcseconds per year (Right Ascension, Declination). More importantly, we don't really know it's distance or it's radial velocity so tracking it down in a 3D galaxy would be very tough, since we are just going off of 1300 year old 2D information. That was a valiant effort by Zenith, but honestly, we don't have the interface in the game to track down stars this faint from the Sol System. Not unless someone has the spectral data on this star hidden somewhere with a redshift and distance estimate? Just to be clear, you can't assume that a Star that is between two stars on a 2 D globe, will also be between those same 2 stars in a 3 D galaxy. It could be anywhere on that bisecting line. From 10LY to 1,000 LY or more.
Click to expand...
I think that while trying to track down the exact and accurate position of the star is noble, the point is not a 100% accurate tracking of a barely known star... it's to find something in the correct-ish area so that we can get a picture of a star for a little girl and get a little astronomy in her life even if its not technically 100% accurate.. She can worry about the redshift of her star later on in life, for now she just wants to take a trip with her dad across the galaxy to her star. so maybe we teach her about constellations a little bit, find lynx, find something similar to her star and go there?
 

TorTorden_VR

T
It's a proceduraly generated galaxy, so the simulation realism is limited at best, and honestly if there are correlations they are statistically guaranteed flukes at best.

-18:322:-339 isn't far from populated space either, just shy of 600ls from where I was in empire space, I got nothing better to do today so taking a day hike into the area.
 
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