Commander's Log/Sagittarius A* to the Bubble

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Logs for my trip back to The Bubble of human-inhabited space from the center of the galaxy, Sagittarius A*, via the Great Annihilator. As with the previous two "parts" of this expedition, flying the Diamondback Explorer type vessel Luminary with a G1 FSD range upgrade on a 5A FSD (max theoretical jump range 33.80 LY, 31.66 LY with full load of fuel) (build on Coriolis).

Incident Log

(It has been -1 days since I last did something stupid.)

Unsafe drop from Supercruise (total): 2
- Controlled flight into star: 2

Day 1 (6 January 3303)

And so begins the last part of my first expedition into the unknown, the return trip to The Bubble. Won't be entirely uneventful, since I'll be visiting the Great Annihilator on my way back.

Of course, the beginning of my long trek back to human-inhabited space is somewhat shadowed by the reports of pilots being pulled out of hyperspace by unknown alien vessels that have been flooding the communications networks for the past 12 hours or so. Interestingly, as of this writing, no official news related to these encounters has appeared on GalNet or any of the other "official" sources. At least so far it doesn't seem that the aliens, if that's what they are, have hostile intentions... yet anyway. Still not exactly comforting news for an explorer like myself, traveling in a ship with only light armaments and defenses. I'd feel a lot safer in my Viper MkIV, that's for sure. This does only cement my intentions to get home as quickly as possible, though, so it's very likely that after I visit the Great Annihilator I will try to find a neutron highway back home to get back as quickly as possible - in part to get into a ship that is defensible, but also because I must admit that I'm somewhat curious myself about what's going on, and all the reports of these "hyperdictions" have all been in the Pleiades region. If somehow I do encounter these aliens, though, I did for some reason equip the Luminary with a Wake Scanner, which from the reports I've seen is actually somewhat useful after being hyperdicted, so at least I've got that going for me.

One last note is that I am changing my waypoint numbering scheme to avoid the confusing numbering of the last leg of my expedition, from Jaques to Sagittarius A* - waypoints between Sgr A* and the Great Annihilator will be prefixed with "A" (e.g., A1, A2, A3) and waypoints between the Great Annihilator and my destination in the Bubble, Halai, will be prefixed with "B" and start the numbering over (e.g., B1, B2, B3).

And with that out of the way, off I go back home! My first waypoint to the Great Annihilator looks like it will be Hypio Pri RV-K a35-60.

This time, it wasn't a water world that makes my first discovery of the night, but a proper Earth-like world, Myrielk WI-X c28-6308 1. And I'll be honest, I'll be mighty disappointed if it turns out that there isn't some elk-like alien creature living on this planet.

Hmm, maybe it's Myrielk, not Thargoids, piloting the ships hyperdicting people?

Another interesting discovery was that of an Earth-like world and a blue water world co-orbiting each other, Wepai DE-E d13-7468 A 7 and A 8. I guess anyone who colonizes the ELW will never have to worry about running out of fresh water....

Final discovery of the night happened upon arrival at Waypoint A2, Wepai JR-D c15-1115 - planets 1 and 2 were another co-orbiting pair of an Earth-like world and a blue water world, respectively. Twice in one day. What are the chances of that?

Made much better progress today than I expected. Already two waypoints in to my journey, and it looks like next flight will be to the Great Annihilator!

Current location is Wepai JR-D c15-1115 (Waypoint A2)
Flying time: ~2.75 hours
1,995.55 LY (estimated) flown from Sagittarius A*
14,501.09 LY (estimated) flown from starting point (Colonia)
23,917.16 LY (straight-line distance) from Sol
926.06 LY to The Great Annihilator
23,894.86 LY to Halai via The Great Anihilator (estimated)

Space madness: 75%

Other Notable Happenings

Discovered brown water world Myrielk ZM-D b53-122 11
Discovered blue water world Myrielk ZM-D b53-122 12
Arrived at Waypoint A1 (Hypio Pri RV-K a35-60)!
Discovered blue water world Hypio Pri LV-Y c3-1402 5
Arrived at Waypoint A2 (Wepai JR-D c15-1115)!

Incidents

Controlled flight into star (CFIS) Hypio Pri SA-U d4-3565 A - too fast approach while fuel scooping. Hull integrity down to 97%, AFMU capacity down to 3006/4000 after repairs of critical systems.
Controlled flight into star (CFIS) Wepai DE-E d13-1086 - too fast approach while fuel scooping. Hull integrity down to 96%, AFMU capacity down to 2622/4000 after repairs of critical systems.

Photos

Earth-like world Myrielk WI-X c28-6308 1 (8K screenshot)
Binary pair Hypio Pri AU-R c7-2730 B and C - not a pair class you see very often

Day 2 (7 January 3303)

Welp.

I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to make it all the way to the Great Annihilator without having to stop and scan any water worlds.

Of course, guess what I found just three jumps away? A nice blueish-grey water world named Athaip BY-F d12-8310 5 decided it had other plans for me. I wasn't the first one to discover this one at least, according to my star charts. Oh, the things we do for money....

Anyway, otherwise an uneventful trip to the Great Annihilator system, whereupon I dropped out of hyperspace and was greeted by Great Annihilator A at rather close range; I barely had time to scan the black hole before it pulled me out of supercruise. Fortunately my throttle was at idle, so my ship's computer was able to safely disengage the FSD. Closest I could get to Great Annihilator A was 713 km before my ship's computer shut down the engines and refused to go further. The effect of the gravitational lensing on my view of the galaxy as I was supercruising away from Great Annihilator A was... interesting and confusing to say the least.

The system itself is quite fascinating; looks like it contains two black holes and five T Tauri stars in various stages of development. One of the T Tauris, Great Annihilator A 1, orbits the first black hole as the name suggests (there's also a planet, A 2 orbiting the same), while the other four stars are somewhat... unusual. Two of the T Tauris, B 1 and B 2, both orbit the second black hole, but each of those T Tauris has a T Tauri orbiting it as well, B 1 a and B 2 a respectively.

Got some close scans of Great Annihilator B (my closest approach was 248 km), but now it's time to begin the last leg of my journey back to The Bubble. I have to admit, I was tempted to visit the Eyes of Riker after seeing the images CMDR stwalkerster sent back to me, but it's not going anywhere - I can always come back sometime in the future, maybe after this whole Thargoid business cools down.

I've decided that to expedite my travel back to The Bubble, I'm going to be using a neutron star plotting tool I found, specifically this route. Since this effectively makes the number of waypoints I must have 230, I won't be recording waypoints for the remainder of my journey. So much for the whole clever "A"/"B" prefixing thing, eh? At least I'll be looking at a savings of about 200 jumps.

I'm still braking for water worlds though, at least for now. We'll see if my desire to make exploration money is overshadowed by my impatience in the future, but for now I stopped to scan a nice blue water world, Athaip XR-H d11-2139 7. I also happened across a fairly rare red giant star (class M8 IVb), Athaip XU-C b46-35 A, on my next jump.

While racing through the neutron highway, at neutron star Shrogea QS-U e2-6434, I relized that I seem to have stumbled inside a nebula of some kind. It is beautiful, covering everything I can see with amazing blues, greens, and reds. Looking at the galaxy map, it looks like I'm in a structure called the Shrogea QS-U e2-6434 Nebula, and it appears to be a single system nebula of some kind? Possibly the result of the supernova that created this neutron star, I suppose. It's absolutely beautiful.

One thing I have to admit that caught me a bit off guard is just how much damage all this jump boosting is causing to my FSD. I'm chewing through my AFMU supply pretty rapidly - I guess it's a good thing I found all that vanadium on my trip out to Jaques!

In the Ogairy YY-S d3-3728 system, I found something strange. Star A was listed as "Class MS0 IIIa" in my scans, a classification I had never heard before. Turns out, these are rather large stars (23.9427 solar radii!) that are turning into carbon stars. It also turns out they aren't fuel scoopable.

My last jump of the night takes me to neutron star Ogairy US-U d2-5058. Making excellent progress back to The Bubble! If all goes to plan, I should be back and ready to check out these Thargoids for myself within two weeks or so.

Current location is Ogairy US-U d2-5058
Flying time: ~4.75 hours
3,287.00 LY (estimated) flown from the Great Annihilator
18,714.02 LY (estimated) flown from starting point (Colonia)
19,734.51 LY (straight-line distance) from Sol
19,704.37 LY to Halai

Space madness: 80%

Other Notable Happenings

Discovered blue water world Athaip YE-P c22-1792 6
Discovered blue water world Athaip YE-P c22-1792 7
Discovered blue water world Athaip QK-A c3-954 ABC 2
End-of-day AFMU supply remaining: 1793/4000, with 9 basic refills available.

Incidents

Nothing to report.

Photos

Great Annihilator A (8K screenshot)
Great Annihilator system overview
Great Annihilator B
Shrogea QS-U e2-6434 supernova remnant nebula (8K screenshot)
Shrogea QS-U e2-6434 supernova remnant nebula, seen in galaxy map
Ogairy YY-S d3-3728 A star information
Ogairy YY-S d3-3728 A seen out the cockpit

Day 3 (10 January 3303)

Remember when I mentioned that I'd probably become too lazy/impatient to scan for water worlds and other interesting planets? Well, today was that day.

I did stop to take scans of a few interesting things, though. First among them, a very fast neutron star, probably a pulsar, right next to a Class M main sequence star; Dryau Aowsy MI-B d13-6037 A and B respectively. Quite an interesting sight!

I also ran into a fairly rare O-class main sequence star (specifically, spectral class O0 Vz, Eos Aowsy KM-W f1-82 A), which was nice to see.

Then there was the fantastic Eos Aowsy MM-W e1-2206 system, which had four stars in view upon dropping out of hyperspace - a neutron star/pulsar with massive ejection cones, and three main sequence stars of classes: K0 Vab, A9 Vb, and K4 Va. Simply beautiful. The pulsar's ejection cone was a bit hazardous to fly through, though, simply due to its size; I honestly wasn't quite sure I was going to make it out.

One thing I do note in disappointment is that I can see that the stars are starting to thin out as I head out towards less dense regions of the galaxy. I already miss the dense star fields of the galactic core.

I must say I'm pleasantly surprised that despite my rush to get back home, this is still turning out to be quite a beautiful and interesting trip. But it looks like that I shall call it a day around neutron star Eos Aowsy SX-U d2-2064 A. As expected, I'm making great progress back towards The Bubble, and I seem to be on-schedule!

Current location is Eos Aowsy SX-U d2-2064
Flying time: ~2 hours
5,846.59 LY (estimated) flown from the Great Annihilator
21,273.61 LY (estimated) flown from starting point (Colonia)
17,170.23 LY (straight-line distance) from Sol
17,140.22 LY to Halai

End-of-day AFMU supply remaining: 1086/4000, with 9 basic refills available.
Space madness: 60%

Other Notable Happenings

Nothing to report.

Incidents

Nothing to report.

Photos

The Dryau Aowsy MI-B d13-6037 star system (8K screenshot)
The Eos Aowsy MM-W e1-2206 star system (8K screenshot)

Day 4 (11 January 3303)

So, more odd sights found on the neutron highway to The ~~Danger Zone~~ Bubble. Byeia Ain BL-P e5-7730 contained five stars: another very fast pulsar, and four main sequence stars of spectral class F4 Vb, K6 Va, G4 Vab, and A9 VI. What made this one unique was that from the vantage point I had when I dropped out of hyperspace, the pulsar was in front of the Class-F star! Moreover, it looks like the pulsar is less than 5 Ls away from comparatively huge Class-F star, so the pulsar should be sucking material away from it.... I was quite concerned that the neutron star's ejection cone would spit me out into the Class-F star (or worse, pull me into the Class-F star without spitting me out of the cone), so I ended up entering the cone at a very shallow angle away from the Class-F and at full throttle (somewhere around 0.5c), which ended up working out for me but was still quite harrowing.

I also seem to have stumbled my way into another beautiful nebula, this one filled with beautiful deep blues and violets. From the shape of the nebula, this is definitely a supernova remnant - the Byeia Ain IG-Y e2986 Nebula. A shame that there aren't any planets in this system (though, given that there was a supernova, that's not surprising); setting down on one would have made for a wonderful photo opportunity.

Ending my flight for today in orbit around neutron star Pueloe BB-F d11-1396. Still on-course and on-time.

Current location is Pueloe BB-F d11-1396
Flying time: ~2 hours
8,961.59 LY (estimated) flown from the Great Annihilator
24,338.61 LY (estimated) flown from starting point (Colonia)
14,051.31 LY (straight-line distance) from Sol
14,021.52 LY to Halai

End-of-day AFMU supply remaining: 209/4000, with 9 basic refills available.
Space madness: 60%

Other Notable Happenings

Nothing to report.

Incidents

Nothing to report.

Photos

The Byeia Ain BL-P e5-7730 star system (8K screenshot)
The Byeia Ain IG-Y e2986 Nebula (supernova remnant nebula) (8K screenshot)
Byeia Ain IG-Y e2986 Nebula seen from the galaxy map
Distant binary pair Blu Ain IC-D d12-3313 C and D

Day 5 (13 January 3303)

Not really much to report today. Mostly just routine jumping, fuel scooping, and route plotting, with the occasional interesting sight but nothing really spectacular today at least.

My progress towards The Bubble does seem to be slowing down. My guess is that as I get further and further away from the core of the galaxy, the neutron star density (as well as the overall star density) decreases fairly rapidly, so most of my jumps now are just regular jumps from star-to-star rather than neutron star boosted jumps. I'm still making good progress, though; it does indeed seem that today I've passed the half-way mark between the Great Annihilator and Halai. I reckon that in 8 to 10 more flight hours, I'll be back home. I'm ending my flight today in orbit of neutron star Eodgols DV-G d10-208 A.

As an aside, for my end-of-day FSD repairs, I ended up having to dip into my materials reserve for the first time to refill my AFMU. Nothing particularly good or bad about that, of course, just a sidenote.

Current location is Eodgols DV-G d10-208
Flying time: ~2 hours
11,668.74 LY (estimated) flown from the Great Annihilator
27,095.76 LY (estimated) flown from starting point (Colonia)
11,390.22 LY (straight-line distance) from Sol
11,363.52 LY to Halai

End-of-day AFMU supply remaining: 3734/4000, with 8 basic refills available.
Space madness: 70%

Other Notable Happenings

Nothing to report.

Incidents

Nothing to report.

Day 6 (14 January 3303)

Nothing much to report this flight. Making good time back to The Bubble, still on-course and on-time. This rushing is starting to make me a bit space-mad, though, so I'll be happy when I finally do make it back.

Current location is Prieluia GL-P d5-227
Flying time: ~2.5 hours
14,612.00 LY (estimated) flown from the Great Annihilator
30,039.02 LY (estimated) flown from starting point (Colonia)
8,410.62 LY (straight-line distance) from Sol
8,383.17 LY to Halai

End-of-day AFMU supply remaining: 3310/4000, with 8 basic refills available.
Space madness: 100%

Other Notable Happenings

Nothing to report.

Incidents

Nothing to report.

Day 7 (16 January 3303)

The space madness is real. Should be making it home tomorrow, though. I hope I'll remember how to do this whole docking thing.

Current location is Smojai LI-B d13-43
Flying time: ~4 hours
19,053.82 LY (estimated) flown from the Great Annihilator
34,480.84 LY (estimated) flown from starting point (Colonia)
3,984.25 LY (straight-line distance) from Sol
3,961.89 LY to Halai

End-of-day AFMU supply remaining: 2653/4000, with 8 basic refills available.
Space madness: 100%

Other Notable Happenings

Nothing to report.

Incidents

Nothing to report.

Day 8 (17 January 3303)

I've made it! Only took 8 days to get back home from Sagittarius A*, though of course a bit further from Colonia which is my "real" starting point for the return leg of my journey home. I'm a bit anxious and space mad for it, but as fun as exploring is, it's nice to be back in The Bubble.

Fortunately, didn't attract much attention on my way in, and I was able to stumble my way into the mailslot of Chaudhary Enterprise starport in the Halai system. Looks like the Federal Navy has built new drydocks here since I was in last, with a nice Farragut-class battlecruiser under construction or repairs or something. Maybe later I'll try to take a closer look at it, but for now I decided to just dock - my flying around other ships is rusty enough currently, and I nearly scraped the side of the mailslot as it is. The paintjob on the trusty 'ol Luminary is a bit worse for wear after nearly 40 kLY of flight, but otherwise everything is in mostly good condition. Repairs ended up running me about 5,415 credits, and restocking 1,679. Decided not to have the paintjob refreshed, though; it's a nice little badge of honor.

As usual, selling all my exploration data to the Universal Cartographics folks was an exercise in patience. I guess exploration data is quite large though, so it would take some time to transfer over to their computer systems. And, despite the fact that I wasn't carrying a detailed surface scanner and the fact that I took a neutron highway from the Great Annihilator back to Halai, I made a nice sum out of the whole journey. Oh, and I got a nice Pilot's Federation promotion to the Exploration rank of Ranger!

I imagine I won't be heading out into the great beyond again for a while; I do somewhat miss civilization, and I kinda want to try this whole passenger transportation business. For now, storing the Luminary and switching back to my trusty Viper MkIV while I decide what to do next (which is probably purchase a new ship for bulk passenger carrying, once I figure out how much that'll cost me and how much bounty hunting I'll need to do to make up the difference anyway). And, maybe in the meantime, I'll go check out these ruins and crashed ships and Thargoid sightings everyone's been buzzing about.

One last interesting note before I close out this log - I noticed that, apparently according to my incident logs, this leg of my journey has been the safest (in terms of incident count), despite it involving me doing one of the most unsafe things one can do, supercharging a frame shift drive off the ejecta of a neutron star. Maybe the extra danger made me pay attention more?

In any case, until next time, closing this log and signing off from home.

Current location is Halai
Flying time: ~3.5 hours
Time spent selling exploration data: 9m50.91s
Profits from selling exploration data: 16,496,967 credits
22,968.75 LY (estimated) flown from the Great Annihilator
25,867.79 LY (straight-line distance) from Sagittarius A*
25,890.23 LY (estimated) flown from Sagittarius A*
38,395.77 LY (estimated) flown from starting point (Colonia)
75.42 LY (straight-line distance) from Sol
0.00 LY to Halai

Space madness: 100%

Other Notable Happenings

Nothing to report.

Incidents

Nothing to report.

Photos

A star with a human-assigned name! Instead of procedurally-generated by the mapping software!
Civilization!
One more jump to home...
So close... (I hope no one interdicts me....)
Made it!
Oooh, capital ship drydock
help i forgot how to dock
Steady now...
And on deck!
Wear and tear on the ship after landing
Wow, Sagittarius A*'s exploration data is worth quite a bit
First discovery spame
Promotion!