If this has been discussed, please ignore...
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I came across the Arecibo Message: "In 1974 as the most powerful broadcast ever deliberately beamed into space was made from Puerto Rico." Aim - say Hello to the aliens. (
read more here)
Now we got a message from the UP. I was wondering if this is a map or a pointer, how should one set reference points. Why not us prominent object in the night sky? Flying around and watching the night sky in my Asp - the Magellanic clouds popped up. Looking for the relative position to Sol, this came up:
The top right arc in the UP message could represent an outer arm as 2nd reference. And the line at 16:30 in the UP's message shows the general direction to look at? (and not a small area to look at) Eventually the symbols around the circle narrow down the region to look at. Just a thought.
For finding things (any thing) this is a good question to ask.
As we all know, finding a precise location on a rotating sphere requires a fixed point in space at the same time each day. For us on Earth Time 0 is when an arbitrary point (Greenwich) is directly below the sun.
In this case, personally I use the rings of Merope 5 in relation to Merope 5C's orbital plane. When you position yourself so you are in the same plane as the orbit in supercruise, and target Merope 5c, move so the ellipse becomes a line. The follow the line until the Merope 5 rings also make a line. I call this Time 0 as it will always be constant regardless of the season. If you then fly around to the opposite side, that point in latitude and longitude will always be directly below Merope 5 at that time of day.
To illustrate (Edit: updated with a gallery that includes the reverse view):
[imgur]DozaJ[/imgur]
We need to do this as, even though Merope 5c is tidally locked we still need to know the time. If Merope 5c had an axial tilt of 0 degrees, we would not need to know the time; the same position (lat,long) would always be below Merope 5. But Merope 5c has an axial tilt of -15.78 degrees, which means the point will oscillate above and below the centre line (ie if you draw a line from the centre of gravity between Merope 5 and Merope 5c's centre, a point would move 15.78 degrees above and below this line in a 6.6 day cycle). I tried measuring the rate of change, and at the time I was there, it was 0.6 degrees north/south per hour, and 0.1 degrees east/west per hour... but that would only be at that time. It could be calculated more accurately as the ratio between the visible long and short axis of the rings, and use trig... but my Maths capability is about 40 years rusty
So when you go to that point(s) where they line up, they will always be constant reference point(s) (there are two, one facing toward Merope 5, and the other away) For my Time 0 I land on the facing away side as it is easier to line up, and with the axial plane pointing upper right to lower left, and the Merope 5 rings pointing from Upper left to lower right.
You know, just like the UP map does.
Edit: Addendum. I took measurements of Merope 5C on 13 Aug 2016 with more finely drawn reproduction of the map, and Merope 5C orbital planes do not match the diagram exactly. I suspect the map is not of Merope 5C, but is a map of the launch point from a different world. From my measurements the orbital plane to search for of the target world is really +/- 81.57 degrees (or +/- 98.43 degrees, depending on which way is up)
I like this as it fits with the "Corrupted Flight Plan" scenario: The middle panel is the departure details, and the right panel is the arrival details. If the UP is going to Merope 5c, then the contents of the right panel are Merope 5C, and possibly related to the singing the UP does. Perhaps the faint symbols on the right panel can correspond to the sound/sequences of the UP singing, so we can translate the middle panel to get a galactic location? The panels appear to have nine chars across.
