Well, here is the result of my comparison of the Traveller star map to real
life. I want to start by saying that I am not an professional astronomer,
just somebody who has an idle interest in astronomy. To help me with
this project, I used the 17th edition _Norton's Star Atlas_ and a list of
the stars and spectral classes of stars with an apparent magnitude brighter
that 3.5 (from Earth, of course) :) printed in the early seventies.
Incidentally, I'd still be interested in hearing from people who have the
old Traveller map in the Library Data-style which shows some nebulae, and
could tell me what names are there, and in which sectors.
Of course, corrections and additions are welcome!
*********************
OUR GALAXY and CHARTED SPACE
The Milky Way Galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a radius of some 15,000 parsecs.
Charted Space is centered on the arbitrary point Reference/Core, which is
considered to be 10,000 parsecs from the galactic center. Charted Space
is tiny in comparison to the galaxy, about 500 parsecs on a side.
That's not to say that that is all that has been explored, however. The
Solomani Confederation has sent ships out 3000 parsecs toward the rim --
about three-fifths of the way there. It's not clear how far anyone has
explored along the spiral arms. Most impressive of all is the Zhodani Core
Expeditions, which has systematically explored and at a few points even
colonized a subsector-wide corridor running 7000 parsecs toward the
galactic core itself. In the next Core Expedition, the Zhodani are on
the verge of entering the core "bulge" itself, the point where the galaxy
thickens from a flattened disk into a ball surrounding the mysterious
center of our galaxy. To realize how impressive this is, draw a scale map
of Charted Space sometime. A jump6 ship might take forty or fifty years
to travel from Zhdant to the far end!
**********************
STARS AND INTERESTING OBJECTS
A flat map just can't simulate a three-dimensional space. Whoever designed
the Traveller universe really didn't worry too much about reality or the
massive distortions that the flat approach would cause. I was actually
quite surprised that *any* stars seemed to be reasonably close to the
right angles and ranges.
I started with the assumption that some "obvious" stars, like supergiants
such as Deneb or class "B" stars, would be deliberately placed. I don't
think that they did this consistently. There just don't seem to be enough
class "B" stars in the Imperium. Also, the handful of supergiants I found
in the UWPs didn't seem to match well. So I moved on to trying to figure
out where some particular stars "should" be found on the map, more or less.
When I was deciding where certain stars "should" be, I used several methods.
For stars near Terra, I depended on UWP spectral classes from the GEnie data.
I tried to keep constellations together...for instance, I decided that
Dingir should be 40 Eridani because the stars were right and the direction
from terra was close to that of Epsilon Eridani. Sometimes, if a star was
very close to another in the sky that had an official location, I tried to
place it on a "line" very roughly through it from Earth. Otherwise, I
compared it to a map of "galactic longitude" in _Norton's_, which shows
the night sky with the Milky Way as the equator.
Spectral classes of stars if given with a Traveller hex are the ones in
the sector data, otherwise they are the ones in reference books. Names
in curly braces are alternate star names, usually the one which identifies
it in its constellation. Names in plain text are the most common name for
stars that do not have a proper name, or are identified by a mainworld
name in Traveller. If the system has a Traveller name like "Beta Cygni-2",
it wasn't retyped to remove the number.
A/B suffix means that the star is in a binary system. AB suffix means the star
has a close companion that can't be distinguished from it.
*******************
"Official" Star Systems (GDW and DGP):
Terra (1827 SolRim) G2V Sol
Fenris (1830 SolRim) F5V Procyon {Alpha Canis Minor}
Barnard (1926 SolRim) M5V Barnard's Star
Prometheus (2027 SolRim) G4V K2V Alpha Centauri A/B
Sirius (1629 SolRim) A1V F3D {Alpha Canis Major}
Fomalhaut (1024 SolRim) A3V K4V {Alpha Piscis Australis}
Iilike (1429 SolRim) G8V Tau Ceti
Capella (1440 SolRim) G4III M1V M5V {Alpha Aurigae}
Altair (1522 SolRim) A7V {Alpha Aquarii}
Shulimik (1530 SolRim) K2V Epsilon Eridani
Vega (1720 SolRim) A0V {Alpha Lyrae}
Castor (2236 SolRim) KOIII {Alpha Geminorum}
Pollux (2339 SolRim) K0III {Beta Geminorum}
Arcturus (2921 SolRim) K2III {Alpha Bootes}
Antares (2421 Antares) M1Ib A0VI {vilani: Mika, Alpha Scorpii}
Deneb (1925 Deneb) A2Ia {Alpha Cygni}
Gashikan (2732 Gashikan) M6III KOIV X Ophiuchi
"Official" Star Systems that haven't been located:
Spica B1V. Somewhere in Spica Sector, probably subsector C.
Acrux B2IV. Somewhere in Alpha Crucis Sector.
Denebola A3V. Somewhere in Alpha Crucis subsector I (Denebola).
Aldebaran K5III. Somewhere in Aldebaran subsector B (Aldebaran).
Possibly Home/Aldebaran? (Just a wild guess).
Canopus F0Ib. Somewhere in Canopus sector.
"Official" Star Systems in question:
R'bak (1314 Reft) G3V. Possibly Rukbat {Alpha Sagittarii}.
Located alone in Sagittarian subsector. Judging by Sector
library data, a homage to Anne McCaffrey's world "Pern".
If so, her Pern did orbit Rukbat.
Beta Cygni-4 (3006 Ilelish) M0V MOD. Should be K3II with binary. Angle OK.
Distance not checked. Also called "Albireo".
Gamma Lupus-2 (2104 Ilelish) M7V. Should be B2V, and position is wrong.
Mizar-5 (1011 OldExp) K0V. Should be A2V, and position is wrong.
Theta Borealis. Sector name. There is no constellation "Borealis". Could
possibly be a eventual shortening of "Corona Borealis", then
its position may also be OK.
Sigma Zephyrus. Sector name. There is no constellation "Zephyrus". At
least, not on 20th century Earth.
Delta Cephei. G2Ib. Paranoia Press put this variable star in their
version of Beyond Sector. Don't know if it's still there.
Helix Nebula {NGC 7293}. "Planetary" nebula. Paranoia Press put this parsec
sized nebula in their version of "Vanguard Reaches" sector.
Whether it's still there is unknown.
Possible Stars for some systems:
Junction (1929 SolRim) M6V Wolf 359
Peraspera (2028 SolRim) M5V Lalande 21185
Meshan (1526 SolRim) K5V Epsilon Indi
Nusku (1822 SolRim) K5V K7V 61 Cygni A/B
Dingir (1222 SolRim) K0V M1D 40 Eridani A/B
Markhashi (1529 SolRim) M5V M6V UV Ceti A/B (maybe not, is flare star)
Undetermined Nearby Supergiants:
Eakhoi (2123 DkNebula) F8Ia (Polaris? Is a bit too close to Terra.)
Sardas (0839 Mendan) F0Ib M7D
(1530 EmptyQtr) M4Ia M4D
Stars of spectral class O9 or greater with Terran app.magn. brighter than 3.5:
Mintaka O9II (binary) far to rimward-trailing (400-600pcs)
Iota Orionis AB O9III (binary) "
Lambda Orionis AB O8? (trinary) "
Alnitak 09Ib (binary) "
Zeta Puppis O5Ia? far to trailing (750pcs)
Zeta Ophiuchi O9V (solo) Lishun sector? (At same range as Antares)
Gamma Velorum A/B WC7 07? rimward-trailing Centrax sector*
*This star system is particularly interesting. Gamma Velorum A, or Regor,
is one of only about 130 "Wolf-Rayet" stars in our galaxy. Essentially,
this is a decidedly unstable type O star that is driving out large masses
of hydrogen to expose parts of its core. This star could explode into
a nova at some time in the future. By a quirk of astrography, it is only
a handful of parsecs from the Hive Federation capital, Glea.
The Hivers don't have official "travel zones", but this system would
probably be equivalent to an amber zone, and also be a "Fascinating"
system, on the basis of the star alone.
Some objects to watch for:
Regulus B7V. Probably somewhere in Aldebaran Sector, range 25pcs.
Betelgeuse M2Ia. Probably in sector 7,1 (one rimward from RimReach).
Rho Ophiuchi Dark Cloud. Collection of nebulae. Probably in coreward
Trenchan Sector.
There are two interstellar governments in Malorn Sector, the "Daprolix
Juncture of Suns" and "Bright Star Cooperate", that are adjacent and along
a line which includes two clusters of bright stars, the Hyades (40pcs.) and
the Pleiades (120pcs.), clusters containing hundreds of stars in a few
parsecs! The problem is, the cluster shown is at *80 parsecs*, so it's
right between them. Your guess is as good as mine which one it is.
******************
That's about all for now. If anyone has any comments, corrections, or
additions, please feel free.
- --Steve Bonneville
[email removed]