BD+30 623 seems to be a pretty unusual star.
I was exploring near Rigel and the Witch Head Nebula and about to jump when I saw a strange violet blob ahead. At first I thought it must be Rigel but on checking it was in the opposite direction and looked like an ordinary small white star from where I was.
I checked the Galaxy map and couldn't find anything similar nearby, however it appeared close to the California Nebula so I kept looking in that direction and a purple dot would occasionally flash on the screen as I moved. Thinking it must be some effect from a pulsar I carried on and eventually found the star near the Califonia Nebula itself. On closer inspection the star looked strange.
It was over 600 light years away but I really wanted a closer look - the route was sparesely populated with stars in places so was a little slow. When I got closer it was clearly a large object.
On the next jump I could see it's distinctive shape.
I half expected to be immediately incenerated when I jumped in - but the star looked like a pretty normal, if bright, white star and behaved like any other.
System Map data for BD+30 623
What I hadn't realised is the star is surrounded by a huge gas cloud - I decided to fly away from it and see how far it goes.
At some distance the background didn't appear to change at all - I suspect it is mapped in the same way as the nebulas to the background.
I carried on trying anyway and got, I thought, some surprisingly nice views of the surrounding space through the cloud before I left.
Goodbye BD+30 623
Some googling on the alternative names HIP 19395 and HD281679 revealed this to be the planetary nebula NGC 1514 - so that makes sense
. Even more searching - unless I've messed up - shows this is the Crystal Ball Nebula and it's a beautiful and interesting object in the real world. Here's the Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1514.
As you can probably guess I don't have a lot of astronomy knowledge - but I've become a lot more interested since I started playing. I'm looking at the sky with new eyes sometimes now.
What other strange objects are waiting to be found out there?
I was exploring near Rigel and the Witch Head Nebula and about to jump when I saw a strange violet blob ahead. At first I thought it must be Rigel but on checking it was in the opposite direction and looked like an ordinary small white star from where I was.
I checked the Galaxy map and couldn't find anything similar nearby, however it appeared close to the California Nebula so I kept looking in that direction and a purple dot would occasionally flash on the screen as I moved. Thinking it must be some effect from a pulsar I carried on and eventually found the star near the Califonia Nebula itself. On closer inspection the star looked strange.
It was over 600 light years away but I really wanted a closer look - the route was sparesely populated with stars in places so was a little slow. When I got closer it was clearly a large object.
On the next jump I could see it's distinctive shape.
I half expected to be immediately incenerated when I jumped in - but the star looked like a pretty normal, if bright, white star and behaved like any other.
System Map data for BD+30 623
What I hadn't realised is the star is surrounded by a huge gas cloud - I decided to fly away from it and see how far it goes.
At some distance the background didn't appear to change at all - I suspect it is mapped in the same way as the nebulas to the background.
I carried on trying anyway and got, I thought, some surprisingly nice views of the surrounding space through the cloud before I left.
Goodbye BD+30 623
Some googling on the alternative names HIP 19395 and HD281679 revealed this to be the planetary nebula NGC 1514 - so that makes sense
. Even more searching - unless I've messed up - shows this is the Crystal Ball Nebula and it's a beautiful and interesting object in the real world. Here's the Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1514.As you can probably guess I don't have a lot of astronomy knowledge - but I've become a lot more interested since I started playing. I'm looking at the sky with new eyes sometimes now.
What other strange objects are waiting to be found out there?
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