List and Sky Charts of other Visible Galaxies in Elite

drkaii · Nov 22, 2015

Hi,

I've got this already in the Complete Guide to Nebulae and Galaxies but I think they deserve their own discussion (if anyone is interested). I've put a lot of work into spotting and identifying all of the galaxies you can see outside the Milky Way in Elite. I compared this with various sources including Stellarium and Space Engine and did my best to identify them all.

I've provided screenshots of each one.

Can any real astronomers correct me? I'd really like to get this down.

Even better would be the devs themselves coming in and correcting me as they'd know for sure!

I have found 32 galaxies in total (including dwarf and irregular galaxies). I think I'm mostly accurate but could be wrong and am open to correction. For the 3 galaxies seen above the Milky Way in the western direction, I really struggled and I've made my best guesses, mainly based on the appearance rather than the position. I think the only galaxies that are at the correct distances are the Magellanic Clouds, I think the others are just put at infinite distance, even though some of them are quite a lot closer and should exhibit parallax.

I took screenshots from the galaxy map and upped the brightness to make the galaxies more visible but some of them are really hard to see, and you will need to do the same to see them. Some I only found once I upped the brightness!

Please add to this if you can!

CMDR Dr. Kaii

Here's a table, to make it easier

Name	Other Designations	Type	Number of Stars*	Direction	Distance (ly)**
Large Magellanic Cloud	Nubecula Major	Irr	20 billion	Towards the Magellanic Clouds	158,200
Small Magellanic Cloud	Nubecula Minor / NGC 292	Irr	3 billion	Towards the Magellanic Clouds	199,000
Ursa Minor Dwarf³		E5	7 million	West Up	200,000
Sextans Dwarf	Sextans I	E4	25 million	East Up	290,000
Sculptor Dwarf	ESO 351-30	E0	50 million	Towards the Magellanic Clouds	290,000
Carina Dwarf		E3	35 million	Towards the Magellanic Clouds	330,000
Fornax Dwarf		E4	130 million	Towards the Magellanic Clouds	460,000
Leo II	DDO 93	E0	90 million	East Up	690,000
Leo I	DDO 74	E3	40 million	East Up	820,000
NGC 6822	IC 4895 / MCG -2-50-6 / DDO 209	Irr	700 million	North Down	1,600,000
IC 10	UGC 192 / MCG 192 / IRAS 177+5900	Irr	160 million	Above Andromeda	2,200,000
IC 1613	UGC 668 / MCG 0-3-70 / DDO 8	Irr	2 billion	Below Andromeda	2,380,000
Andromeda I	KK 8	E0	70 Million	Below Andromeda	2,400,000
Andromeda III	KK 5	E6	8 Million	Below Andromeda	2,440,000
M32	NCG 221 / UGC 452 / MCG 7-2-15	E2	1 billion	Below Andromeda	2,490,000
Andromeda	M 31 / NGC 224 / UGC 454 / MCG 7-2-16	Sb	***1 trillion	Below Andromeda	2,500,000
Cassiopeia 1	KK 19	Irr	6 billion	Above Andromeda	2,550,000
NGC 147 & NGC 185****		E5 / E3	1 billion	Above Andromeda	2,580,000
Leo A	DDO 69	Irr	40 million	East Up	2,600,000
Triangulum	M 33 / NGC 598 / UGC 1117 / MCG 5-4-69	Sc	***40 billion	Below Andromeda	3,000,000
Pegasus Dwarf	DDO 216	dIrr	50 million	Below Andromeda	3,000,000
WLM	Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte / DDO 221	Irr	830 million	Directly Down	3,000,000
Aquarius Dwarf	DDO 210	Irr	8 million	North Down	3,200,000
Sagittarius DIG	ESO 594-4	Irr	40 million	North Down	3,390,000
Antlia Dwarf	PGC 29194	E3	50 million	East Up	4,000,000
NGC 3109	ESO 499-36 / MCG -4-24-13 / UGCA 194	Sb	15 billion	East Up	4,300,000
Sextans A	DDO 75	Irr	570 million	East Up	4,310,000
IC 5152	ESO 237-27 / AM 2159-513 / IRAS 21594-5132	Irr	1 billion	Towards the Magellanic Clouds	5,800,000
Andromeda IV		Irr	600 million	Below Andromeda	6,100,000
NGC 404	UGC 718 / MCG 6-3-18 / ZWG 520.20	S0	900 million	Below Andromeda	10,000,000
NGC 6946²	UGC 11597 / MCG 10-29-6 / ZWG 304.6	SBc	100 billion	West Up	22,000,000
NGC 6952¹	NGC 6951 / UGC 11604 / MCG 11-25-2	SBc	170 billion	West Up	74,000,000
IC 1502³	UGC 12706 / UGC 12105 / MCG 13-1-2	Sa	7 billion	West Up	82,000,000
NGC 5985¹	UGC 9969 / MCG 10-22-30 / ZWG 297.25	SBb	1 trillion	West Up	100,000,000
NGC 6703²	UGC 11356 / MCG 8-34-20 / ZWG 255.14	S0	110 billion	West Up	106,000,000

*Taken from Space Engine (not reliable, but probably good estimates)
**Almost all distances taken from wikipedia. A few I had to find some papers or astronomy sites to get some of them from
***Taken from Wikipedia - check source there
****Physically paired galaxies
¹Only one (or neither) of these is correct
²Only one (or neither) of these is correct
³Only one (or neither) of these is correct

Cmdr Frawd Digger · Nov 22, 2015

You have confirmed that what i thought were the magellanics indeed were. They were constant companions on my last exploration.

Thanks for this.

Frawd

drkaii · Nov 23, 2015

You're welcome. That was the easy bit lol. The hard bit was working out all the other galaxies xD

Andrew Gaspurr · Nov 23, 2015

Nice piece of work and maybe one day FD will release their 2018+ version of the '84 Galactic Hyperspace

Just out of curiosity: How did you figure out the Sagittarius and Canis Maior Dwarfs?

drkaii · Nov 23, 2015

Andrew Gaspurr said:
Nice piece of work and maybe one day FD will release their 2018+ version of the '84 Galactic Hyperspace

Just out of curiosity: How did you figure out the Sagittarius and Canis Maior Dwarfs?

Why specifically those two?

I used space engine, which accurately positions all the galaxies. I just picked the ones that aligned right and were close enough to make sense

Andrew Gaspurr · Nov 23, 2015

Space Engine? Ah okay, didn't know it before.

I am interested in those two because I never really found any decent pictures or data that would position them in relation to the Milky Way. Then again, maybe I did not look thoroughly enough. Will try out Space Engine, it seems like a decent program.

Thanks!

eqinox · Nov 23, 2015

Nice work OP, interesting stuff!

Andrew Gaspurr said:
Nice piece of work and maybe one day FD will release their 2018+ version of the '84 Galactic Hyperspace

No hyperspace, but Raxxla will be a wormhole to the Magellanic clouds

drkaii · Nov 23, 2015

Andrew Gaspurr said:
Space Engine? Ah okay, didn't know it before.

I am interested in those two because I never really found any decent pictures or data that would position them in relation to the Milky Way. Then again, maybe I did not look thoroughly enough. Will try out Space Engine, it seems like a decent program.

Thanks!

Decent? It's literally the best thing in the entire universe. Very meta, I know.

Also, I just realised, Canis Majoris Dwarf? It's not in the list

Andrew Gaspurr · Nov 23, 2015

drkaii said:
Decent? It's literally the best thing in the entire universe. Very meta, I know.

Also, I just realised, Canis Majoris Dwarf? It's not in the list

Yeah, Ursa Minor instead of Canis Maioris. Good heavens, maybe I should just have a cup of Earl Grey.

Now, what I meant is: I am generally interested especially in those two orbiting dwarf galaxies but I never found any decent pictures of them on the Internet. So when I saw your pictures here I thought 'cool!' and asked myself (and you) where your sources for them were. Such was the way of things. And now, Earl Grey...

drkaii · Nov 23, 2015

Andrew Gaspurr said:
Yeah, Ursa Minor instead of Canis Maioris. Good heavens, maybe I should just have a cup of Earl Grey.

Now, what I meant is: I am generally interested especially in those two orbiting dwarf galaxies but I never found any decent pictures of them on the Internet. So when I saw your pictures here I thought 'cool!' and asked myself (and you) where your sources for them were. Such was the way of things. And now, Earl Grey...

I admire someone who has interest in such random galaxies!

BTW, I really don't think it is Ursa Minor Dwarf, which is so close it should have heavy parallax like the magellanic clouds. The position is roughly correct though, but I think it's most likely the other one. Remember, the 3 galaxies in that direction are very questionable! Even though two of them are the brightest after Triangulum...

Andrew Gaspurr · Nov 23, 2015

drkaii said:
I admire someone who has interest in such random galaxies! (...)

Well, they did give rise to the theory about the Monoceros Ring and the subsequent observations concerning the various stellar streams that accompany the Milky Way. Last I read was that newest findings hinted at a much bigger Milky Way than previously observed, because Monoceros could well be a spiral arm of its own and not a trail of gas from a dwarf galaxy. That stuff is very interesting to read.

Linky 1

Linky 2

Linky 3

drkaii · Nov 23, 2015

Ah I remember seeing this, fascinating stuff! Also, the new galaxy that is closest, can't remember where I saw that

I should specify that it is Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular not Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroid as in that theory. Different galaxy. I'll update my table

drkaii · Nov 7, 2021

Has anyone ever tried to improve on this? Has the game changed since this was made? I've been out of it a while, although was brought back here by a like recently

MiloGreenRanger · Nov 7, 2021

This is very nice work. I don't think the skybox has changed much, if at all, since I started in 2016. I know this took a lot of effort, though, because I did something similar for the visible stars in Virgo a while back (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/a-partial-starchart-of-visible-stars-in-virgo.535125/). Belated kudos, CMDR.

drkaii · Nov 7, 2021

Ditto!