GALACTIC PARTITIONING AND DESIGNATIONS
I've thought up a simple intuitive system, drawing inspiration from real-world sytems, such as USNG, streamlining it.
A. The most obvious landmark of the Galaxy is its center.
B. Drawing an axis through Earth and the galactic center, we get a coordinate system. This is the old Earth-bound (angular) galactic coordinate system, dividing the galaxy into 4 quadrants, with galactic longitude marked on the edge, going counter-clockwise.
C. The new (Universal Cartographics) rectangular galactic coordinate system. I marked the quadrants; you'll see they will become very useful.
D. The galaxy, partitioned into squares of 10,000 light-years per side. Let's call these squares "great-sectors", as they are the biggest multiples of 10 that can divide the Galaxy.
How does naming work? In this image, it's one digit per axis, X first, Z second. You don't need more than that at this point. One digit of accuracy simply means "the next lower order of magnitude, starting from the whole galaxy". Since the whole galaxy is about 100,000 light-years across, the next lower order of magnitude means 10,000 lyrs.
Notice how the designations are mirrored for each quadrant. To get unique designations for each "G-sector", just add the quadrant number in front, for example "1.23". So every point inside this sector is at least TWENTY thousands of lightyears across the X-axis, and at least THIRTY thousands of lightyears across the Z-axis. Being quadrant 1, the X would be negative and the Z positive. By using the quadrants we can avoid using the negative sign, which would look awkward for sector designations.
E. Notice how with this system, the numbers inside a square spell out the distance from its perimeter to the axes. Notice also how for the "00" sectors, the distance from their perimeters to both axes is, indeed, zero.
F. "G-sector 1.23" partitioned into smaller squares of 1000 light-years per side. Let's call them (surprise! surprise!) "K-sectors". A K-sector uses 2 digits per axis. The full designation of the emphasized sector would be "1.2337". Every point inside this sector is at least TWENTY-THREE thousands of lightyears across the X-axis, and at least THIRTY-SEVEN thousands of lightyears across the Z-axis.
Notice how you don't necessarily need to spell out "K-sector" in front of the "1.2337", as the number of digits indicates which size of sector it is. Two orders of magnitude lower than the whole galaxy means 1000 lyrs.
G. So on and so forth. A sector of 100 light-years per side would be called "hecto-sector", or "H-sector", and would use 3 digits per axis. A sector of 10 light-years per side would be simply called "sector" and would use 4 digits per axis, with a full designation such as "1.23523768".
POSSIBLE USES OF AN ANGULAR SYSTEM
H. Imagine you're somewhere in the galaxy, at the point marked with the blue "X", and a friend asks "Where are you?"
You could give the X,Y,Z of your system, or its name. But what if you only want to give out your general whereabouts? Then you could say "My heading is about 30 degrees and I'm over 40000 Lys away from Sol". You need the angular system for that.
Or, for maximum coolness, you could say "I'm 40K deep into Aquilae". You need the angular system with constellation boundaries for that.
J. It could also be useful you want to partition the Galaxy; You could sub-divide the 4 galactic quadrants into slices of 30-degrees.
F. Or even further.
I've thought up a simple intuitive system, drawing inspiration from real-world sytems, such as USNG, streamlining it.
A. The most obvious landmark of the Galaxy is its center.
B. Drawing an axis through Earth and the galactic center, we get a coordinate system. This is the old Earth-bound (angular) galactic coordinate system, dividing the galaxy into 4 quadrants, with galactic longitude marked on the edge, going counter-clockwise.
C. The new (Universal Cartographics) rectangular galactic coordinate system. I marked the quadrants; you'll see they will become very useful.
D. The galaxy, partitioned into squares of 10,000 light-years per side. Let's call these squares "great-sectors", as they are the biggest multiples of 10 that can divide the Galaxy.
How does naming work? In this image, it's one digit per axis, X first, Z second. You don't need more than that at this point. One digit of accuracy simply means "the next lower order of magnitude, starting from the whole galaxy". Since the whole galaxy is about 100,000 light-years across, the next lower order of magnitude means 10,000 lyrs.
Notice how the designations are mirrored for each quadrant. To get unique designations for each "G-sector", just add the quadrant number in front, for example "1.23". So every point inside this sector is at least TWENTY thousands of lightyears across the X-axis, and at least THIRTY thousands of lightyears across the Z-axis. Being quadrant 1, the X would be negative and the Z positive. By using the quadrants we can avoid using the negative sign, which would look awkward for sector designations.
E. Notice how with this system, the numbers inside a square spell out the distance from its perimeter to the axes. Notice also how for the "00" sectors, the distance from their perimeters to both axes is, indeed, zero.
F. "G-sector 1.23" partitioned into smaller squares of 1000 light-years per side. Let's call them (surprise! surprise!) "K-sectors". A K-sector uses 2 digits per axis. The full designation of the emphasized sector would be "1.2337". Every point inside this sector is at least TWENTY-THREE thousands of lightyears across the X-axis, and at least THIRTY-SEVEN thousands of lightyears across the Z-axis.
Notice how you don't necessarily need to spell out "K-sector" in front of the "1.2337", as the number of digits indicates which size of sector it is. Two orders of magnitude lower than the whole galaxy means 1000 lyrs.
G. So on and so forth. A sector of 100 light-years per side would be called "hecto-sector", or "H-sector", and would use 3 digits per axis. A sector of 10 light-years per side would be simply called "sector" and would use 4 digits per axis, with a full designation such as "1.23523768".
POSSIBLE USES OF AN ANGULAR SYSTEM
H. Imagine you're somewhere in the galaxy, at the point marked with the blue "X", and a friend asks "Where are you?"
You could give the X,Y,Z of your system, or its name. But what if you only want to give out your general whereabouts? Then you could say "My heading is about 30 degrees and I'm over 40000 Lys away from Sol". You need the angular system for that.
Or, for maximum coolness, you could say "I'm 40K deep into Aquilae". You need the angular system with constellation boundaries for that.
J. It could also be useful you want to partition the Galaxy; You could sub-divide the 4 galactic quadrants into slices of 30-degrees.
F. Or even further.
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