Help to find my little girl's star.

I hear ya Ziljan, because the one missing measurement is the distance. I'm acutely aware that the star could be anywhere from 5ly to 5000ly away, but it was about finding the approximate location in the sky "as seen from Earth".

Others have said what I was thinking. I was looking for systems in that vicinity to provide a day trip in game for adamnwt + daughter.
 
I think that while trying to track down the exact and accurate position of the star is noble, the point is not a 100% accurate tracking of a barely known star... it's to find something in the correct-ish area so that we can get a picture of a star for a little girl and get a little astronomy in her life even if its not technically 100% accurate.. She can worry about the redshift of her star later on in life, for now she just wants to take a trip with her dad across the galaxy to her star. so maybe we teach her about constellations a little bit, find lynx, find something similar to her star and go there?

You hit the nail on the head. I went into this knowing for a fact that this particular star probably does NOT exist in the game. I have no illusions about this. However, when the two of us can hop in the space ship and take off from Earth to her own personal star, that is a kind of magic that never existed before our time. What a world we live in!
 
You hit the nail on the head. I went into this knowing for a fact that this particular star probably does NOT exist in the game. I have no illusions about this. However, when the two of us can hop in the space ship and take off from Earth to her own personal star, that is a kind of magic that never existed before our time. What a world we live in!

I figured that was the general idea.
That said, after re-reading that post, I feel like I came off as super critical of Ziljan who was just trying to help with accurate information. That was not my intent and I appreciate Ziljan's knowledge and experience on the forums greatly for those of us who DO care about red shift and the movement of stars over the last thousand years. So sorry if I came off as condescending or rude, it wasn't meant as a rebuke. Just sometimes we may have to fudge the science to get someone interested in science. Sincerest apologies if I came off as rude to anyone attempting to help in this endeavor. What I meant to say was something more akin to: "if we cant find the REAL star, can we find one close enough to make her day?" but I dined on my foot instead.
 
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Sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes. I strive for accuracy even at the expense of fun sometimes. It's a personal failing. But I believe that the best thing you can do for kids it to be as accurate and honest as possible without confusing or scaring the crap out them. Kids are also smarter and stronger than they look. Plus wouldn't it more motivating to get them to study science, if the true location was left as a compelling mystery, rather than a false sense of certainty?

If I was a kid and my parent showed me this mystery, I would immediately begin to question everything about how we know what we know, and this would lead to a great deal of learning. Especially now that these kids have the internet!
 
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Especially now that these kids have the internet!

touche.

I think the best thing we can do is try to find a suitable star to have adamnwt fly to if he wants to just have a day trip with his daughter. I however agree fully with Ziljan on this, and if at all possible the full truth should be explained. I underestimate children, especially kids these days. It may even be more interesting for her to find out her real life star is not in a video game (she can learn about procedural generation/coding/games) but see a star very similar to her real life star.

Either way I hate to backseat parent on this, I think we can all agree that adamnwt is being an awesome dad to go to this effort and will know how to present it all to his daughter.
 
I didn't make it all the way :D

First I got distracted by some shiny stars and then the UPS guy came by with my CH rudder pedals so felt the need to get back to my vulture and test them out in some combat :)
 
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Cool little post and if it weren't for the arrival on my baby boy last tuesday, would have jumped on into helping with this great request. Hope you find it.
 
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