Here is the Exploration Log (i.e. screenshot gallery) of the first leg of my Great Colonia Expedition, which I’m currently working on in my Elite Dangerous Exploration streams! This covers the somewhat roundabout journey the Bubble to the Orion Molecular Complex (yes, that’s in the other direction from Colonia – I took the scenic route!) and then turning around and eventually arriving at Amundsen Terminal at the Lagoon Nebula for some much-needed rest and repairs!
Bubble to Lagoon Nebula Gallery
The Stars, My Destination. Part one of a long trip out to the Crab Nebula and possibly beyond. First stop – The Witch Head Nebula and its surroundings, assuming I can get past all the permit- locked systems in the way…
57 Mu Eridani, a B V with a neutron star and black hole companion. Two brown dwarfs orbit the neutron star (one of which has landable moons).
57 Mu Eridani C 1 D – rest stop on the fourth moon of the Y Dwarf orbiting the neutron star. Night has fallen and the nebulae are bright in the sky.
Getting closer to the Barnard Loop!
Synuefe HZ-K C10-2 10 – A Waterworld, its star and the Barnard Loop.
Cookies n Cream – Gas giant around HIP 23759 (ninth planet). it’s about 60,000 km radius (Saturn sized), from its innermost moon.
View from the mountaintop.
Looking back at the mountain, with CnC looming above it.
last look at the mountain. I had a lot of fun driving around here!
Farewell, Cookies n Cream!
HIP 23759 11 (Mocha) and two of its ringed moons (and the other non-ringed one too).
Slight diversion from a diversion – on my way to the Spirograph Nebula when I noticed that NGC 1999 (V380 Orionis) was nearby. Here it is on the left in front of the Barnard Loop, which looms large here – it’s about halfway between the Loop Complex and the Witch Head Nebula.
Fiery Sky Tourist Beacon. I found this totally by chance when I glanced at my Navigation Panel – the Fiery Sky tourist beacon (0101) on a planet around one of V380 Orionis’ companion stars!
The Tourist Beacon at Fiery Sky.
Spirograph Nebula from a nearby M star. It looks like it’s at the tail of the Barnard Loop from here.
Inside the Spirograph Nebula, the O star illuminates all its planets in a purple glow, which looks um, interesting against the green sky of the nebula. This is from the ringed second planet.
The sky is green in the nebula.
Oh gods, EVERYTHING is green! It was actually nice to return to the blackness of space when I left 🙂
Big Loop. *Tet02 Orionis C is in the middle, it’s the only star near the Trapezium that I can find here.
Moving through the Loop, the sky is full of nebulae above the Milky Way. Barnard Loop on the left, then Flame Nebula then Running Man and Orion Nebulae, then Witch Head Nebula.
Finally, a clear view of the Horsehead Nebula, behind the Barnard Loop.
This is about as close as I can get to the Horsehead Nebula, at HD 37397. This is a triple system of a B V orbiting another B V with a very close (10 ls!) black hole companion. Probably close enough for an accretion disc if only they were in the game! The two stars look like the eyes of a ghost in the Horsehead Nebula.
Leaving HorseHead – view from M78 Sector HR-W D1-8 1 A. Horsehead on its side!
when I logged back in the Horsehead Nebula had rotated around and looked like a cresting wave!
This large gas giant in Outotz CQ-G D10-1 is the only planet in this quadruple star system, orbiting a distant L Dwarf companion – and it’s about 40% of the size of its primary!
The Type S Giant (Carbon Star) HD 49368, from one of its innermost worlds (a large planet with 2.66G surface gravity). The star is 0.8 AU in radius, and the planet orbits at 1.35 AU!
view from the ring system of the first planet (barely visible on the left)
pretty much directly above the Barnard Loop, on the way to the Ghost of Jupiter Nebula!
two jumps away from the Ghost of Jupiter!
one jump away from the Ghost of Jupiter!
BD-17 2140 1. The star inside the nebula is a Wolf-Rayet star that has shed most of its mass into the space around it to create the Ghost of Jupiter nebula (so named because it looked a little like Jupiter through early telescopes), It has three planets around it – two jovians and a ringed HMC world. The first planet is a 2.2 MJ Class V Gas Giant orbiting at 2.85 AU, with a temperature over 2300 K! Nothing was landable unfortunately.
The second gas giant was also Class V, closer to Saturn in size and orbiting at 4.16 AU.
The third and final planet was a ringed metal-rich lava world with temperature of 1800K and a silicate vapour atmosphere. Toasty!
rest stop on GoJ Sector JH-V C2-0 1. The GoJ Nebula is on the horizon, and the Barnard Loop hangs like a jellyfish (or parachute?) above the Running Man/Orion Nebula.
My very own Earth-Like World in Wregoe QJ-L C23-1! Previously undiscovered!
The second planet in that system is an HMC, here it’s about to eclipse its star.
the paintwork is starting to look a bit scratched!
Gas Midget in Praea Euq GA-Y D1-6. Only 5.1 earth masses, 16,000 km radius.
a nice blue/white Class I GG and one of its icy moons in Praea Euq NL-U C4-0.
a ringed world and its moon. Praea Euq OM-U D3-3 3A.
rest stop on Praea Euq OM-U D3-3 3A. Surface gravity is high (2.85g, 8.56 earth masses, 11,100 km radius) but it’s got germanium and vanadium on it so it’s good for stocking up on “Jumponium”!
PRAEA EUQ RN-T E3-2. For some insane reason I decided to scan every object in this previously undiscovered system. It’s only 44 million years old and consists of an A V star orbited by 18 objects (10 of which are within 1.5 AU of the star, four of which are T Tauri BDs). This is the last planet, a lonely Class III Gas giant.
PRAEA EUQ RN-T E3-2 – this system is mine 😛 .
PRO EURL NC-O C21-3. Previously undiscovered Earth-like planet with its HMC companion world in the distance. I’m doing a little side trip to that triangular asterism of B stars visible below and between the two worlds.
Out of the Darkness – After much searching I found the asterism (which turned out to be the NGC 5460 open cluster), which consisted of some A and B stars including HIP 69006, a type A Supergiant! (though it was really only 12 solar radii). I managed to set up this nice view of the star eclipsed by its first (rocky) planet.
I managed to land at the highest point on a crater peak on HIP 69006 A1 (the eclipsing planet, 1.05G)! It rose about 1 km from the crater floor.
heading off to nearby NGC 5662 open star cluster (seen here, I think) – this one is more open than NGC 5460.
HIP 71163 is the first star in NGC 5662 that I came across, an F supergiant with an M V companion. A gas giant and a large HMC planet orbited the pair – this is the view from the edge of a large crater on the rocky planet, which had a radius of 12300 km and 2.17G and orbited 6.52 AU from the pair. (the M V is visible as the yellow star to the bottom left of the supergiant)
There wasn’t much else interesting in NGC 5662 so I headed off towards the Lagoon Nebula – which was a very long way off. Without many interesting targets around this is where the space madness can kick in…
A few neutron stars later I got to the rest stop system that I had selected. A couple of jumps later I finally found a landable planet I could set down on, the second planet of Blu Thua BV-G D10-24. It had a companion HMC world visible here. Next target – The Bug Nebula!
I got distracted by another asterism. On the way there I found HR 6265, a ‘naked’ Wolf Rayet star without a nebula around it! Its planets were rather purple. This is the first planet, a small Cannonball world with 1.55G and temperature around 1200K. The Wolf Rayet also has a neutron star in tow with its own extensive system!
A nice lineup of three stars as I arrived at TR 24 Sector YE-Z D46.
This is the tiniest Gas Babby I’ve found yet! It’s a ringed Class I located in Bug Sector BQ-Y D22-5, and it’s only 9,811 km in radius (2.2 earth masses).
The Bug Nebula, seen from a nearby system. It’s another bi-lobed “Ghost of Jupiter” type planetary nebula.
A lava world orbiting CD-36 11341, the Wolf Rayet star at the centre of the Bug Nebula.
A potato planet (only about 317 km in radius) orbiting an A V star on the way to the V1292 Scorpii Open Cluster (visible in the background).
about to enter the V1292 Scorpii cluster, starting at V963 Scorpii.
Landed on a planet orbiting a T Tauri Brown Dwarf orbiting an O V star.
This is actually two distant black holes located about 11,000ls from the O V star in V1292 Scorpii. Even at this distance they warp the Milky Way.
landed at the edge of a canyon on the rocky moon of a gas giant orbiting Blu Euq MR-W D1-31. I’ve left the V1292 cluster now, heading for Amundsen Terminal in the Lagoon Nebula where I my expedition will end (for now). I’m about 1000 ly from there now.
I decided to head into the canyon and land, and ended up with a view that Chesley Bonestell would have been proud of :).
Action shot! Canyon running in my SRV 🙂
The pickup was a bit nerve-rracking – I recalled my ship and it arrived perilously close to the canyon wall! But it didn’t hit anything and landed in one piece :). Also, I’m 4,400 ly from Diaguandri now!
Got a little close to a star, but got an awesome shot of a solar flare! 🙂
Nearing the Lagooon Nebula. First I’ll visit Thor’s Eye in the stream of stars coming out of it though.
Class V 10 MJ Hot Jupiter orbits Thor’s Eye at a distance of 2.71 AU. Everything is purple, of course.
Looking down the stream of stars from the Lagoon Nebula, seen from a moon of a Class V 11 MJ superjovian around HD 315024 (one of the stars in the stream). The nebula is about 200ly from here.
Coming in to land at Amundsen Terminal in the Lagoon Nebula!
Touchdown! Safely landed. Phew. 4481 ly from Sol, 4579ly from Diaguandri! Probably over 5000 ly actually travelled since I went a roundabout route. Paintwork down to 39% (not fixed).
The route map so far. TOTALS: 5,461,732 Cr for Exploration Data + 691,034 Cr First Discovery bonus (219 objects) = 6,332,746 Cr total.
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2 Replies to “[Elite Dangerous] The Great Colonia Expedition Part 1 – Bubble to Orion Molecular Complex & Lagoon Nebula”
So this is what you have been doing. 🙂
Very cool expedition, and pretty images.
Yep :). I still have over 150 images from the next legs of the expedition to put up (and it’s ongoing too so there will be more!).
So this is what you have been doing. 🙂
Very cool expedition, and pretty images.
Yep :). I still have over 150 images from the next legs of the expedition to put up (and it’s ongoing too so there will be more!).