Newbie Question About Star Positions

[Old Duck]

So ED accurately represents our galaxy, yes? If so, then I assume this means that the relative 3D distance between stars in simulated ED space is the actual distance between these stars IRL. So my question, is this spacing represented linearly when viewing the galaxy map?

A second, related question - is Sol in the "middle" of the bubble, give or take, and is the bubble roughly spherical in nature, or is it more of a disk / pancake due to the relative flatness of the galactic plane. Ok, one more question - just how thick is the galactic plane in the bubble region?

 

[goemon]

- yes. have in mind that most distances of the astronomy of our times aren't very precise.

- the bubble is a thingy with three centers around the capitals: alioth (alliance), sol (federation), achenar (empire). those don't lay on a line, but - depending how you draw the border of inhabited space - have a radius of ly with inhabited systems around them (those spheres mix in the middle). for achenar and alioth the sphere has a radius of 175 ly, for sol the radius is 200 ly. achenar lays "lower" in the plane than sol, alioth a bit more up...

- depending on where you draw the boarder, the galactic plane above and below sol just counting reachable systems is ~ +/- 1200, so 2500 ly in total. again it is a question where you draw the boarder, as there are regularly record breaking attempts to get higher up or more below. an "infamous" exploration mission ingame is called "Sol's True North Star" - 1214 ly directly above sol, and that was the highest (or one of?) system above sol reachable before engineering.

 

[Old Duck]

Thank you! The science geek in me is excited to play with the galaxy map and imagine the Elite galaxy superimposed over our own night sky. It's pretty amazing when you think about it.

 

[goemon]

Thank you! The science geek in me is excited to play with the galaxy map and imagine the Elite galaxy superimposed over our own night sky. It's pretty amazing when you think about it.

well, i can say that is something which keeps me playing ED regularly ... visiting real galaxy hypergiants. flying to the pleiades and looking down to sol, while seeing the pleiades from my window in RL etc.

 

[Chris Simon]

Thank you! The science geek in me is excited to play with the galaxy map and imagine the Elite galaxy superimposed over our own night sky. It's pretty amazing when you think about it.

It is fairly believable. One thing to keep in mind is that the galaxy kind of rotates D) and things changed between 2017 and 3303, but if you park your ship in Earth's orbit and look around, you'll be able to find quite a lot of familiar constellations (those that are made by Milky way's stars) and stars. And then you can target them and go take a closer look.

 

[popuptoaster]

The percentage of stars in our galaxy that are accurately mapped is pretty small, most of the stars in game are estimates based on some observations and some educated guess work based on how the galaxy should work.

https://www.elitedangerous.com/en/features/our-galaxy

 

[Jackie Silver]

The percentage of stars in our galaxy that are accurately mapped is pretty small

Though rapidly improving, with GAIA.

@OP - For reference, Elite: Dangerous has somewhere on the order of 100,000 hand-authored stars from catalogues, many of which are from HIPPARCOS, which has decent distance measurements. I'm working at the moment on a complete list of star catalogues which are present in the game. Something you will notice is that hand-authored stars tend to be clustered as cylinders in places of interest - for example, I'm just returning from IC 4665 which is an example of that, so some of the catalogues used can be quite specific to those areas.

 

[popuptoaster]

Though rapidly improving, with GAIA.

@OP - For reference, Elite: Dangerous has somewhere on the order of 100,000 hand-authored stars from catalogues, many of which are from HIPPARCOS, which has decent distance measurements. I'm working at the moment on a complete list of star catalogues which are present in the game. Something you will notice is that hand-authored stars tend to be clustered as cylinders in places of interest - for example, I'm just returning from IC 4665 which is an example of that, so some of the catalogues used can be quite specific to those areas.

Agreed, it is improving but there are a LOT of stars out there.

Also many are obscured from our current observation technology either by dust or just other stars, anything in or behind the core from our point of view is still pure guesswork as far as i know?

 

[Codger]

Thank you! The science geek in me is excited to play with the galaxy map and imagine the Elite galaxy superimposed over our own night sky. It's pretty amazing when you think about it.

It IS amazing.

This game has been a wonderful addition to my life, which might sound odd for a game, but I have literally thousands of hours into it now. It's become a hobby, more than just a game.

I won't ever own a real space ship, but this game makes it possible to imagine it in a pretty darn realistic way!

 

[Jackie Silver]

Agreed, it is improving but there are a LOT of stars out there.

Also many are obscured from our current observation technology either by dust or just other stars, anything in or behind the core from our point of view is still pure guesswork as far as i know?

Yeah, pretty much. And it's easier for us to know the shape of neighbouring galaxies than that of our own!

Still, though - I don't know exactly what GAIA's target criteria are, but if it's simply "pick the nearest billion stars to Earth" that will be an amazing improvement over our current situation - it might be only 1% of the stars in the galaxy but it's our 1%.

 

[Old Duck]

It is fairly believable. One thing to keep in mind is that the galaxy kind of rotates D) and things changed between 2017 and 3303, but if you park your ship in Earth's orbit and look around, you'll be able to find quite a lot of familiar constellations (those that are made by Milky way's stars) and stars. And then you can target them and go take a closer look.

... it might be only 1% of the stars in the galaxy but it's our 1%.

I recognize that we can't see much of our galaxy unless we discover a giant mirror in deep space. Right now I'm mostly interested in those iconic stars in our own night sky. So does ED fast-forward time to 3303? I didn't even think of that. However, a couple thousand years to the galaxy are like seconds to us, so I can't image the sky will be that different in 3303. Star Walk will only let me go to 2400, and everything looks the same Perhaps I'll fire up Stellarium and take a screenshot present day and overlap it with one in 3303 to see just how noticeable the stellar drift is.

Speaking of our night sky, does ED render other galaxies visible to the naked eye? Andromeda comes to mind. I wouldn't expect more than a 2D sprite painted in the proper location, but it would be cool.

-- EDIT --

I did play around with Stellarium (which does go to 3303), and the closer stars like Sirius shifted more than I thought they would. Not a huge amount, but still... #IANAA

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Yes, Andromeda is there but the most prominent are the Magellanic Clouds.
As for the shape of the human bubble, try the 'powerplay' tab in the galactic map, it will show you the shape of it. The best part of it is scrolling out, and seeing how little it is compared of the Milky Way.

If you are truly enjoying these stuff, then you're in for a hell of a ride, Elite is a masterpiece!

 

[Jackie Silver]

Speaking of our night sky, does ED render other galaxies visible to the naked eye? Andromeda comes to mind. I wouldn't expect more than a 2D sprite painted in the proper location, but it would be cool.

Yeah, there's a bunch of background objects on the far skybox.

IIRR when moving from one end of the galaxy to the other you can see the Magellanic Clouds shift in position, that's cool.

 

[Old Duck]

Next question - why are the "cool" systems permit locked? Sirius and Vega, for example. Is it hard to get a permit? Also, the "traffic report" on EDSM - is that human CMDRs or AI?

 

[Strangepork]

So ED accurately represents our galaxy, yes? If so, then I assume this means that the relative 3D distance between stars in simulated ED space is the actual distance between these stars IRL. So my question, is this spacing represented linearly when viewing the galaxy map?

A second, related question - is Sol in the "middle" of the bubble, give or take, and is the bubble roughly spherical in nature, or is it more of a disk / pancake due to the relative flatness of the galactic plane. Ok, one more question - just how thick is the galactic plane in the bubble region?

160,000 stars are accurately mapped, the rest are made up.

 

[dognosh]

Next question - why are the "cool" systems permit locked? Sirius and Vega, for example. Is it hard to get a permit? Also, the "traffic report" on EDSM - is that human CMDRs or AI?

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=122593

 

[goemon]

Next question - why are the "cool" systems permit locked? Sirius and Vega, for example. Is it hard to get a permit? Also, the "traffic report" on EDSM - is that human CMDRs or AI?

some permit locked systems are handcrafted, others are lore important. or call it a carrot.

edsm is cmdrs only, and only those using that third party service --- also pc only.

 

[Codger]

Next question - why are the "cool" systems permit locked? Sirius and Vega, for example. Is it hard to get a permit? Also, the "traffic report" on EDSM - is that human CMDRs or AI?

To give you something to strive for, perhaps. Sol is locked, too. I remember being a bit disappointed when I found that out. But it wasn't hard to get the permit

 

[varonica]

I recognize that we can't see much of our galaxy unless we discover a giant mirror in deep space. Right now I'm mostly interested in those iconic stars in our own night sky. So does ED fast-forward time to 3303? I didn't even think of that. However, a couple thousand years to the galaxy are like seconds to us, so I can't image the sky will be that different in 3303. Star Walk will only let me go to 2400, and everything looks the same Perhaps I'll fire up Stellarium and take a screenshot present day and overlap it with one in 3303 to see just how noticeable the stellar drift is.

The length of time for Sol to orbit the galactic core is between 225 and 250m years, so you won't see much change in distant stars, only if Sol is moving quite fast relative to other stars motion would it be noticeable in a few thousand years in a major way. In a minor way the galaxy from the earth will look quite different because of the wobble and axial precession of the earths rotation. Most of the nearby bodies in the galaxy will be orbiting the galactic core in the same direction so it won't be that noticeable, of course the sun moves up and down through the galactic midpoint from around 250ly below to 250ly above and that would change the view considerably, but again that's a long term effect probably not very noticeable over periods as short as a thousand years.

 

[Old Duck]

160,000 stars are accurately mapped, the rest are made up.

I'm cool with that. Like the one post nicely stated, those are our stars, and there are more than I'll ever be able to visit in this lifetime.

Addendum to my OP - Again, disclaimer, IANAA, so forgive my ignorance. Are stellar coordinates based on apparent position in our sky, or are those positions adjusted for C? A star 1000 lightyears away from earth is seen where it was 1000 years ago, not where it is today (mind boggling). My question applies both to actual astronomical catalogs and the simulated galaxy of ED. If positions are adjusted, is that guesswork in many cases? I know we've observed gradual star shift with nearby stars, but do we have enough records going back far enough into the past to calculate galactic orbits of distant stars?