An 1600 Ly journey to Barnard's Loop

jXjK0l.gif


Some bullets and numbers and almost facts:
  • The journey took more than one week in RL, flying an average of 6 hours a day.
  • Found a system with a neutron star, and one with a black hole, but failed to actually pinpoint them.
  • Needed to trace back numerous times to find navigable paths at sparsely populated areas.
  • Lost hope two times, but there is no turning back after 1000 Lys in a Sidewinder :)
  • Haven't seen ships, stations for one week. Only stars, nebulae, planets.
  • Burned my ship around 10 times while fuel scooping, despite being very cautious. Returned with 38% hull.
  • Incidentally my MP3 player played this when I entered the first populated system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pnbxFtGVNg&t=2m09s. I was almost crying at the sight of a human-made artifact.
  • I was awesome out there :)
 
I'm there now. Took me a bit less than 42 hours though. I'm probably not scanning as much as you? I guess my 24(ish) LY jump range helps as well. I wouldn't have even attempted it in a sidewinder, kudos!

Cloest I came to death was jumping through a star to end up between two binary stars. That was hot!

I was going to say we should meet up and have a loop party, but sounds like you're back already?
 
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Very cool.
I took the same journey in an upgraded adder.
What kind of jump range did you have on the sidewinder?
 
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who made this trip. I had a 16 Ly jump range on the Sidewinder. I scanned everything I've found on the way there, but only stars on the way back. Now I mostly have it worked out what is really worth to scan. I've seen lots of types and sizes of stars, except for black holes and neutron stars.

The system with the back hole was my favourite, packed with dying stars and gas giants. Spent a lot of time searching for the star, unsuccessful. I was trying to go after its gravitational effect, keeping an eye on the acceleration of my ship, but the possible area was huge (~80000 Ls radius), and I had no luck. There also was a strange phenomena in that system. I couldn't decide whether it was a glitch or the effect of the black hole. It was a star-like dot, which always moved the opposite way it should if it was a star. I couldn't work out any theories that would explain it and helped to find the star.

JS1n13.jpg
 
There also was a strange phenomena in that system. I couldn't decide whether it was a glitch or the effect of the black hole. It was a star-like dot, which always moved the opposite way it should if it was a star. I couldn't work out any theories that would explain it and helped to find the star.

It's an effect of the black hole's lensing, but i can't figure out if it's helpful with regard to finding them. Only one i found with the mk.1 eyeball was at the start of gamma when it would show up as a dot from far enough away, think that's been changed since. I use advanced discovery scanner now ... feels like cheating but there you go.
 
jXjK0l.gif


Some bullets and numbers and almost facts:
  • The journey took more than one week in RL, flying an average of 6 hours a day.
  • Found a system with a neutron star, and one with a black hole, but failed to actually pinpoint them.
  • Needed to trace back numerous times to find navigable paths at sparsely populated areas.
  • Lost hope two times, but there is no turning back after 1000 Lys in a Sidewinder :)
  • Haven't seen ships, stations for one week. Only stars, nebulae, planets.
  • Burned my ship around 10 times while fuel scooping, despite being very cautious. Returned with 38% hull.
  • Incidentally my MP3 player played this when I entered the first populated system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pnbxFtGVNg&t=2m09s. I was almost crying at the sight of a human-made artifact.
  • I was awesome out there :)

That gif is AMAZING. Well done. +rep
 
It's an effect of the black hole's lensing, but i can't figure out if it's helpful with regard to finding them. Only one i found with the mk.1 eyeball was at the start of gamma when it would show up as a dot from far enough away, think that's been changed since. I use advanced discovery scanner now ... feels like cheating but there you go.
First time I saw it, I was really freaked out. I thought an ufo was chasing me! It's a broken/forgotten lensflare effect from the black hole and you can use it to roughly determine the direction you need to go. Analyzing the orbital lines of the other objects works better tho, but I still couldn't find some of the holes.
 
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