SID's Holiday

[Jermus]

It is time to take me and my ship on a holiday trip .

It will be an exploration tour to - you wouldn't guess - Sagittarius A* Beagle Point (Despite my slight distaste for crowded tourist sites). In December I read about the Distant Worlds Expedition, when I just started playing Elite Dangerous. This was just too soon to be part of this, but I can make an effort to follow in it's wake (not the real thing, but hey, you never know what will come along).

Logbook entries per day (day 0 is this post):

day 0	day 2			day 5			day 8
				day 15					day 20
		day 23
day 31					day 36				day 40
		day 43	day 44				day 48		day 50
day 51	day 52	day 53	day 54		day 56	day 57	day 58	day 59	day 60
day 61	day 62	day 63					day 68	day 69	day 70
	day 72	day 73	day 74				day 78	day 79	day 80
day 81			day 84	day 85	day 86	day 87		day 89	day 90
day 91	day 92	day 93	day 94	day 95			day 98		day 100
day 101	day 102	day 103	day 104	day 105	day 106	day 107	day 108	day 109
day 111	day 112	day 113	day 114	day 115	day 116	day 117	day 118	day 119	day 120
day 121	day 122	day 123	day 124	day 125	day 126	day 127	day 128	day 129	day 130
	day 132	day 133	day 134	day 135
			day 154	day 155	day 156	day 157	day 158	day 159	day 160
day 161	day 162			day 165	day 166	day 167	day 168	day 169	day 170
		day 173	day 174	day 175	day 176	day 177	day 178	day 179	day 180
	day 182		day 184	day 185	day 186	day 187	day 188		day 190
day 191	day 192	day 193			day 196			day 199	day 200
	day 202		day 204	day 205	day 206	day 207	day 208		day 210
		day 213		day 215			day 218
day 221		day 223		day 225	day 226	day 227	day 228		day 230
day 231		day 233		day 235			day 238		day 240
day 241			day 244				day 248
day 251			day 254		day 256	day 257	day 258	day 259	day 260
day 261	day 262	day 263

The last week I spent practicing landing my Sidewinder [hotas]. I ended up using the "Flight Assist On - Off - On" method to slowly decent the last meters (after aligning the landing gear with the ground). A technique I did not master immediately...

Spoiler

I'll use this thread to share my progress. To me this is quite a challange and I do not know whether I will complete the trip using the current set-up, as I will fly without shields. Without shields I have room to do the "proper" system and planet scans. With shields there would be no room for the Detailed Surface Scanner. It will not be a fast trip, both because of the jump range of the Sidewinder and of my intention to go on planetary exploration. I will need the materials later to jump the longer distances, so I had better learn to collect them on the way to Saggitarius A* Beagle Point (without the fallback of hopping back to the nearest station for repair). Therefore I call this a holiday: Just a "quick" trip to the centre of the galaxy and then I will decide what to do next.

Plans have changed a little bit since the initial writing of this post. The current travel plan is to go up through the Scutum Centaurus arm, then up to beagle point along route zero-ish (I expect this to be the difficult part, not as in requiring lots of skill, but as in requiring perseverence and patience [knocked out]) and than down to the bubble doing a reverse "Distant Worlds Expedition" (but without reversing waypoint 24).

First leg will go to COL 285 SECTOR AG-O D6-83, as this is one of the furthest inhabited systems to the "north" of the bubble. I don't know whether it is safe, or if they can perform ship repairs (as this might be the last chance for me to perform some repairs). I just know that the system exists...

So here goes:

Start:
System: LHS 3447 (not too far away from home).
Distance to Sagittarius A*: 25.843,91 LY

Day 0 (10 MAR 3302)
Current System: COL 285 SECTOR AG-O D6-83
Distance to Sagittarius A*: 25.710,43 LY
ETA: ?

Sou you out there,

CMDR Jermus

 

[Jon474]

Good luck, Cmdr

Fly safe.

Report back when you can...with pictures.

Flying happy
Jon
T-6E

 

[Thrawn29]

To Sagittarius in a Sidey, That's an interesting challenge...
Pretty sure Frawd Digger would have things to say about this.

Fly safe commander. o7

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

If you're planning to do some landings, you're going to need a shield.

Good luck o7

 

[Jermus]

Day 2	12 MAR 3302
Current system	Col 285 Sector GN-A c14-29
Distance to SAGITTARIUS A*	25.645,68 LY

I dreaded leaving Col 285 Sector AG-O d6-83as this is probably the last time I will see civilized society for a long time (well, civilized... two conflict zones near the landfal planet with the starbase, but still). Recognizing this as a kind of stage fright I bit the bullet and took off.

On the second jump I found a nice landfal planet near a gass giant with rings. This always makes for a nice picture:

Spoiler

The rest of the time I spent on advancing down and north. My desired path to the core is to go in a straight line, but a little below the centre of the galaxy. Not for any particular reason, I just thought it would be a nice route.

Safe flying,
CMDR Jermus

 

[Ashnak]

When going below the ecliptic plane, take care. Thee seem to be much more unscoopables just below the ecliptic than above it. Having loads of stars to jump to won't help you if most of them are unscoopable.

 

[Jermus]

Thee seem to be much more unscoopables just below the ecliptic than above it.

Thanks for the heads up! Always good to know what dangers are ahead.

 

[Jermus]

Day 5	15 MAR 3302
Current System	AUCOKS CN-R D5-31
Distance to SAGITTARIUS A*	23.875,91 LY

The last three days have been quite an experience. I tried landing on a 0.89G planet, which costed me 2% hull (first landing was perfect. the second try looked good, but obviously it wasn't). After that I tried landing on a 0.67G planet, cost me also 2% hull (2 tries, because I'm stubborn). From now on I will not try anything above the reported success rate of CMDR Blain Crighton (which is 0.64G).

I also learned that when the info panel says "impact" it means what it says... I almost did a sun dive because I was too enthousiast during fuel scooping . Fortunately I had heat sinks installed, so the damage is really moderate (everyting still high in the 90 percent).

And yesterday, when calculating how many days I would still be on my way to SagA, it landed. Space is big. really, really big. Yesterday my ETA would be 28 JUN 3302 (a 108 days to go). Today I managed to get the number down a bit, but in doing so there is also less time to look around (and there is RL creeping around the corner, also slowing things down consideretaly). Below my current position in relation to SOL. You can see that I made some progress, but there is still a long way to go.

Spoiler

But I also had some good moments. I went to look at the R CRA NEBULA.

Spoiler

This is a small nebula, but it was my first one, and I thought it looked nice. After that I went on to the CORONA AUSTR. DARK REGION, which is better to look at from the outside, where you can see that it blackens out a part of the galaxy.

Spoiler

From the inside it is, well, dark. Not really much to look at .

I took some pictures on the way and the last one tonight to help me remember where I am going to.

Spoiler

Fly safe,
CMDR Jermus
(Who has no trouble with the "Fly safe" part of landing, it is the last bit that hurts...)

 

[SpaceMonkeyz]

Awesome Journal so far. I look forward to following your progress towards Sag A


Fly safe Commander

 

[Jermus]

Day 8	18 MAR 3302
Current System	UACOKS BK-D B58-0
Distance to SAGITTARIUS A*	23.155.35 LY

Its tough to make a decision in general, and even more on how to go to SagA. I don't want to take a 100 days to get there, and I don't want to skip scanning systems. I settled for speed at the moment. I use the given time to jump as far as time will let me and then do some scans at the end of each dayly run.

Unfortunately I did not see much interesting the last days. It's a bit dull below the galactic plane, no one around and just stars.... I did give myself some time to relax in an alien sunset after having scanned the whole system. You don't get them like this at LHS 3447...

Spoiler

The main excitement of the last days was the end of day 7 when I not only slammed almost into a very big star (but still "just" a class M red dwarf), but also into its orbiting class IV gas giant. I was like "Whoa! ", but soon realized that I was still at (very) safe distance. To my good fortune I found out that these bodies were accompanied by another star (class T brown dwarf) and I met them in perfect position.

Spoiler

I'm glad I took the picture when I arrived, as when I woke up the next morning their positions would not have allowed a similar picture.

All in all not a bad result for a few dull days.

I can see now two interesting directions. I can head onto the Lagoon Nebula, followed by the Trifid Nebula. There are also some intersting constellations up north east, some kind of cross of stars (but they are much bigger than just stars to be visible from where I am). I just cannot get them identified, so for now I will head on to the Lagoon Nebula.

Fly safe,
CMDR Jermus

 

[Jermus]

The Cross of Stars

Day 15	24 MAR 3302
Current System	HD 152314
Distance to SAGITTARIUS A*	21.913,05 LY

Forget the Lagoon Nebula! This Cross of Stars kept intriguing me (well, cross.. more a plus-sign with stretched arms, but anyway).

Spoiler

I found out I could not live with the idea of not knowing what these stars are, so I opened the galaxy map and started to play with star filters and lots and lots of zooming. And with success: I found them! It's a cluster of O-type stars on the other side of the Sagittarius Gap. Now that I know what to look for I can also see them on the galaxy map, even when all zoomed out. These stars form a kind of pier from the Sagittarius Carina arm into the Sagittarius Gap. Only a rough 1500 LY away...

There I started, fast-traveling to my destination: Jump-Honk-Scoop-Jump-Honk-Scoop-etc. (shouldn't there have been scanning in the sequence also?).... And the cross slowly getting bigger. I wondered about the brightness of the stars as they can be seen while scooping through the light of the current star. You need quite some bright star to achieve that!

Spoiler

I was so busy jumping and jumping that I'd almost forget this is my holiday! So I took a brake for some fun flying on a local ice planet. At this point (I'm almost halfway the Sagittarius Gap by now) there are some more stars visible around the cluster and the cross slowly becomes less crossy.

Spoiler

Toying around with some maps I found in the glove-compartment of the Sidewinder I think I now where I'm heading: The V945 SCORPII CLUSTER. And according to the map I should be almost on top of the Bug Nebula also! And it appeared that the maps were correct. Just that the bug Nebula was like a 800 LY above me...[knocked out]. Ah, what! It's my holiday and I don't keep a time-table . So Up I went. Glad I did. There's no question as to why this nebula is called the bug nebula (and the last picture is from the inside of the nebula).

Spoiler

After having visited the Bug Nebula I am almost level with the V945 SCORPII CLUSTER. I up the pace a little and more stars of the cluster become visible. I can also see what caused it to get it's name (tail on the right):

Spoiler

I it nice to see the beast getting bigger when I fly closer and closer. The last 100 LY the picture starts to deform rapidly, though.

Spoiler

I've visited all O-type stars of the cluster and some of the B-types. My, what a weird bunch they are! Stars circling around stars circling around stars... And I've done my first black hole . And my first neutron star . Neutron stars are dangerous... neutrons stars are small... neutron stars are dangerously small (there, that's it!). And my hull is now at 93 % [sour] (all modules still above ninety percent, fortunately). I landed in the system that gave the cluster it's name (or the other way around, I'm not sure) for some scenic memorabilia and took some random pictures during the visit (but it is most very, very bright stars, though. And they do not make for the best of picutures. And it is actually quite scary to point your nose at a big O-type during scooping for the scan. I know you won't fall in immediately, but these things are sooo big).

Spoiler

Just halve way during the visit of the cluster I had the moment of my live: I met another commander! In real space! Go figure! (I play in open) For a moment I was scared I ran into a pirate as what I saw was the hollow triangle of a small ship and not the big rectangle of the "real" big explorers. Turned out it was an Asp, also on it's way to Saggittarius A* and the encounter was short, but very nice and much appreciated by me.

I've crossed the Sagittarius Gap! Feels like I've managed to do the first part of the journey quite allright. And I've noticed that I live up to the character I named my ship after: Insatiable curious, enthousiastically impulsive, easily distracted, slightly erratic and a tad bit naïve. I hope that with these attributes I manage to make it to the end of my journey...



Fly safe,
CMDR Jermus

 

[Joghiarus]

Keep the reports coming Commander They are a joy to read.

 

[Jermus]

"Owls Garden" (and beyond)

Day 20	30 MAR 3302
Current System	LYSOONTS TH-U C3-2
Distance to SAGITTARIUS A*	19.375,88 LY
Distance to SOL	7.504,19 LY

So, now I knew what this "Cross of Stars" actually was and with the map still in my hand that guided me to the V945 SCORPII CLUSTER I was wondering what to do next. And there I noticed this odd little text: "Owls Garden"; the discription that belonged to this directive on the map also wasn't very helpful. Actually, it was totally unclear why this "Owls Garden" had made the map at all!

Next waypoint... "Owls Garden" .

I tried to find the star that was listed along with the legend of "Owls Garden" on the map, but I must have made a typing error, as I could not find the system. So I set out a course based on the coordinates on the map into the BLO EURL region, another 1500 LYs or so. Now 1500 LY is too much for the Galactic Map to plot a course, so I sought a system inbetween. Arriving there I looked back once to the V945 SCORPII CLUSTER, to quickly move on to the BLO EURL region (Tail's on the left this time...).

Spoiler

On my way to the garden I almost ran into these two beauties! (there is actually a third, also very close, but I couldn't get them in one picture. Not without staying longer than one minute, and in my race to the garden I did not give myself that much time...)

Spoiler

Arriving in the garden I have spent some time looking for owls. Couldn't find any [where is it]. Nice night sky with stars, though.

Spoiler

Then, when doing triangulation, I was opted to enter the distance to the star that was mentioned in the legend of the "Owls Garden" on the map! I guess that this is the star where the commander received his wine-induced vision of the name of the region: A wolf-rayet star (my first wolf-rayet star!). I have to say that upon arriving I was a little underwhelmed, but from a distance it did provide the right light for a nice picture (and it still baffles me why this part of the galaxy is called "Owls Garden").

Spoiler

Wait! Down there! Below the nose, and slightly above the nebula... Isn't that...? Yes! You can still see the V945 SCORPII CLUSTER (no, not the "Owls Garden". I already told you that I am still trying to figure out why... Will probably remain a mystery forever...)

I have developed a rhythm in jumping. I can now jump-honk-scoop a - to me - impressive 500 LY in one / one and a half hour (the variation in time depends on my need for coffee). After visiting the "Owls Garden" I did not find anything interesting on the map, at least not in the zero degree direction (or due north. I don't know what the proper way to address this direction is; Beagle Point direction should give an indication on the general direction). I do not want to go in a straight line to the core at the moment, so "up" it is: jump approximately 500 LY and then scan a few systems, rinse and repeat. I did find some nice spots this way: a peace-loving gas giant, a ringed waterworld (a beaty to see!) and a see-through gas giant (just for fun).

Spoiler

Here you see the NGC 6357 Nebula as a "peace" sign through the rings of the gas giant; as if the universe is trying to say: "Pirates go home! Booh!".

Isn't she beatifull?! (I mean the waterworld, not the spaceship; not that the spaceship isn't a beaty also, but that is not what I am trying to stress at the moment).

I never thought you could actually see through these giants. They look really massive and dense, but with a bit of a torch you can see right through!

Now I am at the end of my second leg of +/- 500 LY jump-honk-scoop. I am in the vicinity of three yellow stars, and I will investigate and scan all three of them before moving on. I am thinking of doing a speedrun this weekend (as I will have the time to do one) and see how fast I can travel a 1000 LY (and maybe become eligible for the "jonk in -50s" badge / ribbon).

Anyway, RL calls, so I will take a couple of days rest now. Ah, there are worse places in the galaxy to pass the time .

Spoiler

Fly safe,
CMDR Jermus

 

[Jermus]

The 3Gs Speed Run

Day 23	02 APR 3302
Current System	LYSOONTS VW-C B55-0
Distance to SAGITTARIUS A*	18,428.56 LY
Distance to SOL	8.544,15 LY

I set out to investigate the 3Gs, the three G-type stars that I ended near after the previous leg of my journy. The 3Gs turned out to be in fact the 3Gs, plus a few Ks and some more Gs. On top of that they were totally and utterly boring and dull . Where I hoped on maybe an Earth Like World, I was rewarded with lumps of ice and sometimes nothing at all (just the star and that's it). They have been nicely catalogued and filed away. I managed to make a few picuters of the odd gas giant that was present, but it is not the most spectecular material.

Spoiler

I scanned each star on arrival (first things first and it's the closest cosmic body upon entering a system). So despite the tinted glass, I now have a nice tan .



I then set out a course in the general direction of the Scutum Centaurus arm, becuase I wanted to know how fast I could travel. I set out a course of around 1000 LY (999.78 LY to be precise) counting 77 jumps and the idea was to travel this distance as fast as possible. I started this speed run at 19:13 02 APR 3302 and when I finished the speed run the time was 21:00 02 APR 3302. So it took me a total of 1 hour and 47 minutes to traval a 1000 LYs.

Spoiler

Me just before the speed run. In the back you can spot a water world.

That's not a bad result. Especially not when you take into account that I have to scoop for fuel every second jump. During scooping I also scan the next stars of my flight path. Despite the fact that there are a tremenduous amount of scoopable stars every now and then there appears an unscoopable star in my flight path and wiht a jump range of 2 jumps at max range you have to be ... careful. I also fetched coffee twice in that time and I had the RL job of making sure our youngest child went to bed properly (who did get less attention than usual ). Below are the videos I made of the start and the end of the speed run (not the highest of quality, but it gives an impression of what my speed run was like)

Spoiler

Speed Run - Begin
Speed Run - End

And I'm So ... Fasty Fast that I think that I am eligable to wear the badge .

What next? There's a bagel shaped magnet at the edge of the universe... Should I...? But it is sooo far away... But wouldn't it be nice to have been there? :S

Fly safe,
CMDR Jermus

 

[Jermus]

Twinkle, twinkle, ...

Day 31	10 APR 3302
Current System	PREIA PHOEA WM-U C19-45
Distance to SAGITTARIUS A*	15.751,40 LY
Distance to SOL	12.779,50 LY

Well, let's put the result of the previous pondering to rest: there are stars twinkling nearby that need investigating! And boy, the last few days have been quite something!

It all started after writing the previous report. I decided to do a scan-run. Now is "scan-run" a bit odd to describe what I did, as there is hardly any running involved when scanning each system you jump into. It slows down the pace of the travel considerately, but is very welcome when the previous 1000 LYs all you have done is jump-honk-jump-honk-scoop, etc.

The first few systems where nothing to be excited about. Different types of stars, mainly M-type stars, with ice planets circling around them. Then I found a system that was a bit more interesting: A system with a lot of ringed gas giants (for me the most I have seen in one system so far). One of the moons in that system (again, yep, an ice ball) had a pretty nice surface pattern, which made up for a lot of its predecessors.

Spoiler

And then in the next system (an A-type star):


The last planet to scan in this system... is it...? really...?


Yes! An Earth Like World! My first Earth Like World! Ever! I'm a proper explorer now! [yesnod]


Selfie time!

Oooh! Energy! Yes! I'm gonna conquer the galaxy!
Oooh! Look! Another star. What? 1000 LY away? No prob. I can handle it! Let's jump, jump, jump...


Jump.


Jump.


Jump.

Deep breath, calm down. Wow. Special, very special. My first ELW (now 1000 LY behind ). Let's celebrate it with a "Look, I'm flying in a an ice-ring" picture

Spoiler

The next system made me land with my feet on the ground again... A rocky body with 0,60 G. Theoratically I should be able to land on it, but in practice it got my hull another 1% down... Maybe I should have gone for the A grade thrusters, instead of the D. Maybe I should start to distrust my landing capability for anything over 0,50 G (this will probably safe me a lot of future hull).

Spoiler

Don't know whether to thank you or to despise you... nasty little planet...

Look! Over there! That is a bright one! Let's go!

Spoiler

The bright one appeared to be a double O-type system...


... with one little, scorched, metal-rich-content planet.

And with this system I have crossed the 10.000 LYs from SOL line; I'm getting somewhere.

Over there! A black hole!

Spoiler

A very small black hole, it appeared to be. And already discovered(!). I couldn't get a proper picture of the black hole. Now is it nigh impossible to get a picture of a black hole. You just get the distortion it creates in the light that passes it and since this was a very small black hole...


Fortunately it was accompanied by some T-Tauri stars, two B-type stars, some (scorched) planets and...


... one planet I did get to land on without loosing hull, bathing in the eerie light of a B-type star.

The next 1000 LY jump routine brought me to another G-type star. Although it didn't contain another ELW, it did contain two sets of remarkable planets. The first is a pair of rocky bodies that are 0,01 Ls apart. I thought this to be quite close, but the same system had another pair of ice bodies that were (roughly) 1600 Km apart! When flying from one to the other the altimeter would go up to 800 Km and then it started to decline again because I was already approaching the other. Amazing.

Spoiler

0,01 Ls apart, so close.


Of course I had to land on them!

After that I made another 1000 LY leg to the system where I'm currently in. I am quite happy with the distance I have covered and with the things I have seen until now.





...

Hey look! A neutron star! What? 1000 LY away? No prob. I can handle it! Let's jump, jump, jump...

Fly safe,
CMDR Jermus

 

[Cmdr Frawd Digger]

Sorry, Jermus I totally missed this thread...Sid the Sidey...like it!

Fly safe and hopefully we can have a meet-up when I get closer to you.

BTW love the pics...especially that one with the sun reflecting from your canopy!

Frawd

 

[Jermus]

Sorry, Jermus I totally missed this thread...Sid the Sidey...like it!

No problem, I'm glad you've found it and like it.

Fly safe and hopefully we can have a meet-up when I get closer to you.

I sure would like to meet up. I think it will take a month, or longer, before we're even close enough to start serious planning, but I'm on my way.

BTW love the pics...especially that one with the sun reflecting from your canopy!

Thank you. And the canopy picture is also one of my favorites; a lucky shot that, actually, totally not planned this way...

Fly safe,
CMDR Jermus

 

[Cmdr Frawd Digger]

No problem, I'm glad you've found it and like it.


I sure would like to meet up. I think it will take a month, or longer, before we're even close enough to start serious planning, but I'm on my way.


Thank you. And the canopy picture is also one of my favorites; a lucky shot that, actually, totally not planned this way...

Fly safe,
CMDR Jermus

Excellent...I'll keep an eye on your position and we'll find a good time...I would guess in at least two months (certainly at the rate I am heading back right now).

And I am totally useless on the debug cam...after starting ED in August last year I still haven't really figured it out.

Frawd

 

[iain666]

And I am totally useless on the debug cam...after starting ED in August last year I still haven't really figured it out.

It flies just like your ship does. Use your stick/mouse look/whatever to point it in a direction, accelerate and decelerate, thrust left/right or up/down with the same controls you use for your ship and fly it around, just like you do your ship. There's no magic or trick to it.

 

[Vasious]

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Jermus again."