Little celestia game: Lost in space, find the sun visually!

[Redfish]

I really like this game, but i'll need some help.

I got the galaxies file, so i got a load of galaxies in my universe up to 50 Milion lightyears from the earth. I start at one of the farthest galaxies from the earth. Then i simply start flying, no hud information present, simply the galaxies. I then fly along some of them, and usually i come across the andromeda and the milky way, they are easy to distinguish because they are the only galaxies with clearly visible companions.
Then i fly closer to our milky way, until i can see the stars. The cloud that surrounds the sun has 2 bright stars on the left and the right side of this "cloud".
I fly straight into it, somewhere in the middle. I reduce my speed until i'm flying slowly thru the starscloud surrounding the sun. Then the pleiades become visible, because they are the most densely represented cluster of stars near our sun. You can quite easily pick them out of the rest of the stars, when you have the magnitude to its maximum.
But then....
I'm still lost.
I'm around 350 ly from the sun, but there is nothing visually distinct enough to point me in the correct direction. I really hope someone can help me, cuz i'd like to know the way back home! :)
Give me some directions, things to focus on that will help me get near the sun again.

[Paul]

From the Pleiades, I can usually then locate the Hyades, which are a bit yellower and more spread out (and closer to Sol). From there I look out towards the Scorpius-Centaurus association of stars (toward the galactic center) and locate the bright red star Antares. The line from Antares to the Hyades passes close by Sol. I start moving in that direction, about 100ly on I pass a bright yellow star which is Aldebaran. At this point I tweak my trajectory so that Aldebaran lines up in its correct place relative to the Hyades (and Orion will start lining up too). When the constellations look almost right I'll be passing a small yellow star which is near a similar yellow one (Rigil Kent) and two brighter white ones (Sirius, Procyon). As I approach the star closely, planets will become visible confirming that my navigation was successful.

[Matt McIrvin]

If I ever get abducted by aliens, I want you along.

[Redfish]

Sounds nice, but what if you don't have constellations enabled, can you find it then as well?

[Guest]

I tried this once, you can't see the sun from more than about 60 ly away :O[[[

[Paul]

Sounds nice, but what if you don't have constellations enabled, can you find it then as well?

I never have constellations enabled. That would be cheating!

I do sometimes find it difficult to spot Antares, and easy to miss Aldebaran, though.

Seriously though, if the whole galaxy were represented faithfully, it'd be really hard to find the Pleiades starting from, say, M31 or the LMC. Currently it's fairly easy to just head for the densest arrangement of stars because they're all plotted around Sol, which obviously isn't realistic.
I think in a sea of stars, you wouldn't be useing the stars to navigate by eye (although I'm sure a navi-computer would). I guess you'd have to be good at recognising the Eta Carinae, Orion and North America nebulae and work your way in from there. Perhaps there's an arrangement of globulars you could orient yourself with, or even the dark clouds along the spiral arms. Oh, for such a detailed galaxy simulation... *sigh*

[Rassilon]

From the Pleiades, I can usually then locate the Hyades, which are a bit yellower and more spread out (and closer to Sol). From there I look out towards the Scorpius-Centaurus association of stars (toward the galactic center) and locate the bright red star Antares. The line from Antares to the Hyades passes close by Sol. I start moving in that direction, about 100ly on I pass a bright yellow star which is Aldebaran. At this point I tweak my trajectory so that Aldebaran lines up in its correct place relative to the Hyades (and Orion will start lining up too). When the constellations look almost right I'll be passing a small yellow star which is near a similar yellow one (Rigil Kent) and two brighter white ones (Sirius, Procyon). As I approach the star closely, planets will become visible confirming that my navigation was successful.

What planet are you from Must be the same general cluster of stars I originated hehe

[Matt McIrvin]

I think in a sea of stars, you wouldn't be useing the stars to navigate by eye (although I'm sure a navi-computer would). I guess you'd have to be good at recognising the Eta Carinae, Orion and North America nebulae and work your way in from there. Perhaps there's an arrangement of globulars you could orient yourself with, or even the dark clouds along the spiral arms. Oh, for such a detailed galaxy simulation... *sigh*

Best of all would be to look at something like hydrogen Lyman alpha. Then you could easily navigate by the big hydrogen shells surrounding OB associations. Having seen maps of our galactic neighborhood with those mapped out, I sometimes wish they existed in Celestia's world; it would be an interesting thing to tackle when there's better nebulosity support.

[Miserableman]

Okay, try this, which is a bit of a variation on Pauls path, but I believe easier to follow and more accurate.

RULE: No HUD, related to distance from or identification of objects (i.e. no clicking on a star to see what it is/how far away it is). The Celestial Grid, Constellations and Orbits must not be shown. No labels are allowed at all.

RULE: Your starting position is outside but within sight of the milky way, with 0 velocity and random orientation.

GOAL: To find your way back to Earth.

Your first step is to locate the part of the milky way Sol is in (if you can't see the milky way, you're shafted). Use the ] key to turn up star brightness to maximum, and a field of stars should appear in one quarter. Fly into the middle of this.

The next task is to locate the pleiades, a cloud of bright blue stars which should be visible from pretty much anywhere in the quadrant. You will likely find them by looking away from the galactic centre. Once the pleiades are located, fly towards them until you're roughly amoung them, and stop (F1). Congratulations, you are 350 light years from Earth.

Now look toward the galaxy centre. Rotate your field of view (using cursor keys) until the galactic plane runs left/right, and turn the star brightness down a few notches with [. Either directly above or below the galaxy centre is a bright red star, Antares, which is almost 1000 light years away. Rotate your field of view so Antares is above the galaxy centre. As we move, this won't move much, so remember its rough position in the sky as it comes in handy later on.

Plot an imaginary line from the galactic centre through Antares. Watch the area of space the other side of Antares from the galaxy centre (i.e. look above and slightly to the right of Antares) and set out toward Antares at around 10ly/s. After about 7 seconds you should see two bright yellow stars moving slowly away from Antares almost hand in hand (don't look before about 5 seconds, as you could get confused with two other stars). Stop, and plot a course for the star on the right, which is Aldebaran. Go to Aldebaran, and get within a light year of it. You are now just 65 light years from Earth.

Now look back towards Antares, which is still somewhere around the galaxy centre. Rotate your FOV so the galaxy plane is dead level, and reduce the star brightness with [ so that a bare minimum of stars are visible, maybe only 30 in your FOV. Above and slightly to the left of Antares are a tight triangle of bright stars. The lowest of these is Sirius, which lies only 8 light years from Earth. Plot a course to Sirius, and ideally get within 500 au. Stop there.

Look back towards Antares, and make sure the star brightness is set right down, so that only about 30 or so stars are visible. Get the galactic plane level again, with Antares above it. Now look into the galaxy, to the left of the centre to find the bright yellow star Rigel Kentaurus (it should be just on the edge of your FOV, if centered on Antares). Draw an imaginary line from Antares down through Rigel Kent., and approximately the same distance the other side of Rigel Kent. is another bright star (Altair). Centre the FOV on Altair, and assuming the galaxy plane is level you'll notice Altair and Rigel Kent form a right-angled triangle with the third star - above Altair, to the left of Rigel Kent. This is Sol, and is the last interstellar journey on your trip.

I'll leave finding Earth from Sol to you |o/

[Miserableman]

Tested this on my gf, and apart from having to help with finding the Pleiades, Antares, the galactic centre, Aldebaran, the difference between "above and slightly to the left" and "a lot to the left and slightly above" and why fine tuning ones position at 1 ly/s isn't a good idea, she got there in the end.

[Redfish]

Problem is though, that in real life (ahem) when you would be flying towords the sun, you can't turn off some stars :P
I'm still trying to find it without doing that

[Rassilon]

Well imagine how much harder it would be to start say 50 million ly away and Celestia having the enire known universe filled with stars...This of course would be the way it was if you actually had to do this at one point....not in our lifetimes I suppose...But still I cant even fathom trying to find my way back...suppose thats why in sci-fi novels the navigations officer relys on a computer hehe...so would it be cheating to implement a navagation computer of sorts in Celestia?

Well now its not going to happen...but in the future I suppose it would be a bonus...

[chris]

What would be neat is to incorporate a pulsar catalog into Celestia, and then try and use a pulsar-based map to navigate home. Celestia could help out by displaying the frequencies of all pulsars within the field of view. Or maybe that would be too easy . . .

--Chris

[Miserableman]

Problem is though, that in real life (ahem) when you would be flying towords the sun, you can't turn off some stars :P
I'm still trying to find it without doing that

A computer would be able to increase or decrease the brightness of a set of stars on a viewscreen, so this would be possible. The challenge isn't how can one person find their way home unaided, you have to assume they have some kind of spaceship, with technology to help them.

That technology can't include tools to say "this way to Sirius" tho :O]