Commander Slog

Wait! How do you turn this damn thing on?…

[cmdrslog]

The trip to the California Nebula, including a random picture of a T-Tauri star (because, well, bright!), a shiny yellow metal-rich world, a solar flare while fuel scooping and a good close-up of the nebula.

[cmdrslog]

Maia B

OK, so I’m in the Pleiades sector now visiting the Maia B black hole. Have spent ages just orbiting around it taking in the trippy gravitic lensing effects. It made my stomach turn at first and I had to turn away and steel myself for another go, but now I’m really loving it. I’m not clear on how close I can get without sitting down and doing the maths, so I’ve been trying not to go crazy. It’s too small to see the event horizon with the naked eye unfortunately so you can’t actually see a black hole as such.

I’m on my way home to SD from the California Nebula and conveniently the Pleiades is on the way back. Need to check the galactic map, but I think I’m only a few hundred light years away now, so I’ll have to get ready for the mad dash back through the badlands into civilised space. It’ll be weird to be chancing interdictions with pirates again since I’ve been so completely on my own for so long now.

I’m going to go back through the photos from the last couple of weeks and pull out some good ones to log. I should probably also write a post explaining why it took me two weeks to get to the California Nebula…

[cmdrslog]

Black hole! I’m way way behind on this log – sorry. I’ll catch up the news soon, but I just had to record this now.

[cmdrslog]

Journey planner says I have 8 or so more jumps before I hit the California Nebula. That's letting the Asp stretch its – pretty long – legs, I could go for more fuel-efficient jumps and take my time.

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Delicious pie!

So I have made a delicious pie for dinner. I kid, of course, I'm actually reduced to eating synthetic meat paste out of a tube now. Exploring is slower going than I had expected so I woefully under-stocked on fresh food. I have enough emergency stuff to last me for months, but it's pretty dire. I'm reduced to rationing out my last coffee supplies now – one hot coffee every two days.

Still, while I've been eating I've also figured out how to lash up a network between the galaxy map and the ship's log, so now I can grab direct snaps instead of having to take pictures with the helmet-o-cam. So it's been a productive day! A picture of my present whereabouts will follow shortly. 

[cmdrslog]

Yay! I found another water world! Detailed surface scanner says this one is suitable for terraforming. Also two gas giants and a nitrogen atmosphere, metal-rich planet. Dropping into the gravity wells is a massive waste of time, but I’m a sucker for a snapshot.

Stopping in this system for dinner.

[cmdrslog]

Actually, one more quick one. That squidy thing in the distance is what the California Nebula looks like from this distance. More later…

[cmdrslog]

OK. Back again. I've finished surveying this system. The close trinary (still not sure that's the right word) star arrangement is the most interesting thing about it; a bunch of rocky and icy planets, lots of methane. I took the above picture of the galaxy map hologram through the helmet cam to show where I am. I am aware that this is an insane way in the 34th century to be documenting my progress – I'll try to lash up something more appropriate over dinner.

Anyway, you can see that I've been travelling from Barnard's Loop over to the California Nebula. I stopped at the Witch Head, Orion, Horsehead and Flame nebulae and Messier 78 (think that's all of 'em). The Flaming Star nebula isn't as close as it looks on the map from this angle (662LY away), so I'll save that for another trip. I've highlighted home (Shinrarta Dezhra) in the distance; map says it's 1174LY away, so I'm actually obliquely getting closer to home since I was over 1300LY away back when I was over in Barnard's Loop.

Anyway, I'm going to try and get a bunch more jumps in before I break for some food; 320ish LY to go to the California Nebula (depending on how close I want to get).

[cmdrslog]

Pretty sweet trinary (is that a word?) system. Too toasty to sit here for long, so I'll back off to a safer distance before posting anything else.

[cmdrslog]

Well this is embarrassing

Two and a half week's out and I've only just figured out how to use the ship's log. So, some catching up is no doubt in order. It is… about 14:00 on Sunday 1st March 3301 Galactic Mean Time and this is Commander Hogg here! No, not that one obviously; what with that being, like, 150 hundred years ago. No, sadly, I am some great-great-something-or-other of the original. However, it appears the family name still counts for something – along with being born on Jameson Memorial – as I seem to have inherited the old man's Founder badge. Unfortunately, it appears I didn't inherit his quick reactions and, what with there not being a war on anyway, I have decided to be an explorer instead.

The badge got me a free long-range kitted Cobra Mk III to start off with, but I spent my first month in it trading instead. I stayed close to home mostly, grinding between Shinrarta and Bunda, saving money like mad and getting used to being out on my own. I'd have liked to stay in the Cobra for ol' times sake since that's what the great man flew back in the day, but I figured the Asp is a smarter move for really long-range, so I switched to that a month ago and continued grinding enough to upgrade the FSD to an A class.

Now, according to the snap I took of the dash when I headed out (old school), I've been out of dock for nearly 18 days. I'm somewhere a couple of hundred LYs from the California Nebula at the moment. I'll post a picture out of the canopy in a moment when I can figure out how to connect the camera up to the log system. I've got a bunch I've taken over the last two week's so I'll try to post some more soon. This trip is just to get my sea legs and see some of the nearby nebulae. I'll likely swing back via civilisation in a couple of weeks, sell the exploration data and stock up for the big one… the trip to Sag*A!

[cmdrslog]

Testing, testing, testing, 1, 2, 3…

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.