New General Catalogue Mapping Expedition I

[roboteconomist]

In response to the Galactic Mapping Project's call for assistance, I've decided to do a short trip out into the black to document eleven objects from the New General Catalogue (NGC):

NGC 6842 (CSI+29-19529)
NGC 6852 (IRAS 19581+0135)
NGC 7009 (BD-11 5511 aka Saturn Nebula)
NGC 6567 (CSI-19-18107)
NGC 6629 (CD-23 14350)
NGC 6565 (CD-28 14266)
NGC 6326 (CD-51 10820)
NGC 5882 (CD-45 9789)
NGC 5307 (CD-50 8073)
NGC 6153 (CD-39 10464)
NGC 6337 (Hen 2-215)
NGC 6563 (CD-33 12935)
NGC 7209 star cluster (CN Lacertae)

My route map can be found here. I'm not fully convinced that there is route to the Saturn Nebula, but I plan to spend some time poking around in the COJIA and COJIE sectors as I pass between NGC 6852 and NGC 6567 in order to find out. I also plan on documenting any Earth-Like Worlds, giant stars, extremely planets, and unusual stellar or planetary configurations that I run into along the way.

To get there and back again, I will be flying in my trusty JUMP RANGER, which I've tweaked a little since my survey of ELWs and giant stars in the Wayfarer's Graveyard and kitted out with a pulsating cyan exterior and matching engine detailing. I originally purchased it for my combat 'Conda RANDOS ON BOARD, but I'm taking it out into the black to see how well it stands up to rigors of deep space travel.

Watch this space for updates from my travels.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

I honestly don't think there's a way to Saturn Nebula but I'm keen to see how far you get.

 

[roboteconomist]

I honestly don't think there's a way to Saturn Nebula but I'm keen to see how far you get.

I've found a couple of tantalizingly close neutron stars. We'll see if they're close enough...

 

[roboteconomist]

A quick update -- I am still about 5k light years out from my first waypoint, but I decided to take a detour south of the galactic plane to check out some potentially undiscovered systems within 2k of Sol then stop by the best looking nebula in the game for a quick photoshoot before heading back towards NGC 6842.

I've visited five real-world giant stars thus far, including:

HIP 96143

chi Cygni (GMP write-up)

HIP 98817

HD 227393

HD 191045

Apologies that the last two are kind of boring, there wasn't much in either system. I also found an undiscovered ELW with landable moon only 1.5k light years from Sol -- so don't let anyone tell you everything in the near Bubble has already been explored:

I will close this entry out with another gratuitous selfie, this one taken from the rings of HIP 99068 1:

 

[roboteconomist]

A quick wrap-up from Day 1, including two more super giants:

HD 214493 (the super giant is that speck of light 40,000 light seconds away in the background)

HD 215128

31 Pegasi (write-up)

Also, an interesting planet find -- a personal best for smallest gas giant:

And, of course, a shot of the best looking nebula in the game framed with arguably the second best looking nebula in the game:

 

[roboteconomist]

Expedition, Day 3:

Covered a little more than 2,000 light years in three hours with a detour to survey a 'D' mass system cluster in the NGC 6940 Sector in search of Earth-likes. I didn't find one, but there appear to be at least two more largely unsurveyed clusters of systems with A and F Class stars in the sector, so I may come back and check those out after this trip.

I also passed through two more orange giant systems in the Prooe Drye Sector (and discovered a few Earth-likes) en route to the next waypoint along my path to NGC 6842 -- a patch of 10 red and orange giants located in the Prae Drye sector:

Shots from those two orange giants in Prooe Drye -- here is ZF-V D3-35:

And Prooe Drye ZQ-T D4-26:

 

[roboteconomist]

So that patch of giant stars ended up being 4 orange giants and 11 red giants. Nothing super notable among them, but I did run into two ELWs along the way. Here is a quick photo album from the excursion.

That last one was interesting -- a Class V gas giant and M Class star orbiting within 100 light seconds or so of the system's red giant. In a classic StellarForge move, the gas giant and red dwarf have roughly the same surface temperatures.

No more diversions until I hit that first NGC waypoint.

 

[roboteconomist]

Expedition, Day 7

I heard you like rings, bruh...

Seriously though, that system is a real prospector's paradise -- 16 landable bodies within 250 light seconds of the star containing all of the jumponium mats.

After running into that system and three more ELWs, I finally made it to NGC 6842:

Write-up is here.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Expedition, Day 7

I heard you like rings, bruh...

http://i.imgur.com/utMacW7.jpg

Seriously though, that system is a real prospector's paradise -- 16 landable bodies within 250 light seconds of the star containing all of the jumponium mats.

After running into that system and three more ELWs, I finally made it to NGC 6842:

http://i.imgur.com/P5aQ78c.jpg

Write-up is here.

Sweet

 

[roboteconomist]

Arrived at NGC 6852 today; GMP write-up forthcoming.

I also poked around the COJIA sector to see how close I could get to the Saturn Nebula. It appears that COJIA DA-P d6-0 is the closest system as it is more-or-less directly over the nebula:

 

[roboteconomist]

One more waypoint down -- visited NGC 6567 this afternoon.

I nearly ate it jumping in between a Class A and K pair on my way back from the COJIA sector. Other than this, I found another ELW (up to 11 now) and this system with a gas giant orbiting 30 light seconds away from a neutron star and Class M pair:

I think I am going to take a slight detour to one of the bases in the Lagoon Nebula to repair my hull and power plant before moving on to the next waypoint.

 

[Aura Lorell]

Gorgeous pictures, love them all. Thank you so much for sharing!

 

[roboteconomist]

Ty Rhea and those dropping all of the rep. The Trifid Nebula was actually closer to my path to NGC 6629, so I stopped at Observation Post Epsilon to unload ~100 mil CR of cartographic data, reload and restock. For those curious to see how the pulsating paint jobs hold up to extended periods out in the black, here is what my ship looks like after about 10 hours of exploring:

Not too bad.

 

[roboteconomist]

I'm back on the trail. Here is a snap from NGC 6629 -- a write-up can be found here.

 

[roboteconomist]

And some shots from NGC 6565:

One more interesting shot from my travels -- three tightly-spaced volcanic worlds.

 

[roboteconomist]

A couple of interesting shots, including a pair of gas giants with completely different rotational axes:

And a highly volanic world orbiting less than 500 light seconds from a red giant:

I sweat just looking at it.

 

[Corbin Moran]

Amazing pictures

 

[roboteconomist]

Back from my eclipse trip. Here is some interesting stuff from the stretch of space between NGC 6565 and NGC 6326, including a system with double red giants:

This pair of strangely-oriented gas giants:

A really busy system with a neutron star and three dwarf stars at its core:

A Y dwarf with huge rings only 50 light seconds from its main F class star:

A terraformable water moon orbiting a gas giant with ammonia-based life:

An ammonia world with three moons (is that a record?):

And an undiscovered blue-white giant:

 

[roboteconomist]

And a couple of shots from NGC 6326; I should have a write-up done this weekend:

 

[roboteconomist]

The write-up for NGC 6326 has been posted. I tried to have a little fun with it.