AKA: I forgot my advanced discovery scanner.
So, back before computers, astronomers used to use this thing called a Blink Comparator to find planets and other bodies in the solar system. [SUB]Fun note, Pluto was discovered this way.[/SUB]
It basically works by taking two pictures of the same part of sky at different times then comparing them to see what changed. Since the stars are so far away and the relative motion so small for them the stars don't move, but objects in the solar system do move due to the planets motion around the sun. Unfortunately this can take months or years depending on the speed of the body. Luckily in Elite we have supercruise.
In Elite since you can supercruise, you can often easily pick out close objects due to how quickly they move across your view, but if it is EXTREMELY distant this may not work and it may be very difficult to tell which particular point of light is moving.
This is where the Blink Comparator comes in.
Instructions
First, pick a location in the sky, in this example, I'm using the red star ahead of me. Exit super cruise and come to a full and complete stop. I need a point of reference to line up the two views so i use the top of the curving orange left hand HUD element, I've positioned a yellow star there..
Ensure you stop head tracking by using the "UI Focus key" and then take a screenshot
Then using YAW only, rotate your ship till it's about 90 degrees (it doesn't really matter how much, so long as you move in a direction sideways relative to where you want to check), then go into super cruise at max speed for anywhere between 5 seconds and 30 seconds.
Drop out of super cruise, come to a complete stop then rotate back (using yaw only) your view so that your point of reference lines up again. In this case I ensure that yellow star is lined up again.
Ensure you stop head tracking by using the "UI Focus key" and then take another screenshot.
Then, go into the directory the screenshots are saved, and open the picture using "Windows Photo Viewer". Once it's open you can use the arrow keys to move between screenshots which allows you to rapidly "blink" between your two screens and you should get something like this:
You can clearly see the red star has moved.
Of course, you can avoid all this tedious work by buying an advanced discovery scanner, but really, what is the fun in that?
Notes
Obviously this works in a ship that has as much open canopy as possible so you can check large areas of the sky at the same time.
The most important thing is that you use only a single axis between shots and ensure that you line up the reference point as close as possible.
Put your FOV to the largest it'll go!
So, back before computers, astronomers used to use this thing called a Blink Comparator to find planets and other bodies in the solar system. [SUB]Fun note, Pluto was discovered this way.[/SUB]
It basically works by taking two pictures of the same part of sky at different times then comparing them to see what changed. Since the stars are so far away and the relative motion so small for them the stars don't move, but objects in the solar system do move due to the planets motion around the sun. Unfortunately this can take months or years depending on the speed of the body. Luckily in Elite we have supercruise.
In Elite since you can supercruise, you can often easily pick out close objects due to how quickly they move across your view, but if it is EXTREMELY distant this may not work and it may be very difficult to tell which particular point of light is moving.
This is where the Blink Comparator comes in.
Instructions
First, pick a location in the sky, in this example, I'm using the red star ahead of me. Exit super cruise and come to a full and complete stop. I need a point of reference to line up the two views so i use the top of the curving orange left hand HUD element, I've positioned a yellow star there..
Then using YAW only, rotate your ship till it's about 90 degrees (it doesn't really matter how much, so long as you move in a direction sideways relative to where you want to check), then go into super cruise at max speed for anywhere between 5 seconds and 30 seconds.
Drop out of super cruise, come to a complete stop then rotate back (using yaw only) your view so that your point of reference lines up again. In this case I ensure that yellow star is lined up again.
Ensure you stop head tracking by using the "UI Focus key" and then take another screenshot.
Of course, you can avoid all this tedious work by buying an advanced discovery scanner, but really, what is the fun in that?
Notes
Obviously this works in a ship that has as much open canopy as possible so you can check large areas of the sky at the same time.
The most important thing is that you use only a single axis between shots and ensure that you line up the reference point as close as possible.
Put your FOV to the largest it'll go!
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