Star Trek star maps using Gaia star position data

[jimcat]

Hello everyone,
I’ve not been here much for quite a while, but I have made some progress with what turned out to be a VERY long-term project. The original plan was to tweak the “Star Trek Star Charts” with updated information and more accurate background stars. That fell apart when the new information trashed the set-up for Cardassia and Bajor. The link below will take you to a page where you can look at four star charts of the Federation, Romulans, Klingons and Cardassians, along with a PDF explaining my “working out.”

http://atavachron.wikidot.com/calendars:base-maps

I’d post a sample, but I’ve given up on ever making enough posts to put up images in messages. They’re still a bit sparse, but I think I’ve reached a point where I can share them, and see what anyone else might think of them.
Best wishes,
Timon

 

[Michael]

There‘s no limit you have to reach in order to post inline images in your posts. That‘s a thing from the past. So share away!

 

[Cyfa]

These are fascinating. Thanks for sharing them, jimcat. I haven't read the Astronavigation file yet, but I will do when time allows.
I've had a few goes at trying to find stars-that-feature-in-Trek in the night sky, and have gone so far as to take photos with my (rather crappy) camera and label them, but it's slow going, so I'm not surprised that you said that yours is/was "a VERY long-term project".

 

[publiusr]

Do something special for 47 Ursae Majoris...Dilbia?

 

[jimcat]

Hi @Michael ,
Thanks for pointing that out. If I haven't made a mess of it, here's a sample:

@publiusr that's a very "Star Trek Maps" suggestion! I'm not sure yet if I'll be going "off franchise" but it's something I'd definitely consider.
Best wishes,
Timon

 

[F. King Daniel]

What era are your maps from? You say the Romulan neutral zone ended in 2387, but Romulus is still there. Shouldn't there be a 10-light-year void around where it used to be?

 

[DEWLine]

Do we know what the series' creators have decided upon for the supernova effect radius?

Also, I know people on Twitter who will be Very Interested in these new maps!

 

[Lakenheath 72]

jimcat,

The Trivas system, with the space station Empok Nor, is much closer to DS9 than Cardassia. It is stated to be three light years away in the episode "Empok Nor".

 

[F. King Daniel]

Do we know what the series' creators have decided upon for the supernova effect radius?

Also, I know people on Twitter who will be Very Interested in these new maps!

The first Picard tie-in novel says ten light-years. Not canon, but the closest we've got for now.

 

[Christopher]

The first Picard tie-in novel says ten light-years. Not canon, but the closest we've got for now.

IIRC, that was just the initial prediction of the critically endangered area, and it was later suggested that the Romulans' data had downplayed the probable intensity of the supernova. And there would've been no way to know for sure which predictions were correct until the supernova happened, which was after the time frame of the novel. So we don't actually know the affected area.

And there wouldn't be a "void," except in an astropolitical and demographic sense. A supernova wouldn't destroy any stars except itself (or perhaps a very close binary companion). Planets in neighboring star systems would be lethally irradiated, perhaps even partially stripped of their atmospheres, but they'd still be physically present, and many would eventually recover or be terraformable once the radiation front had passed.

 

[F. King Daniel]

IIRC, that was just the initial prediction of the critically endangered area, and it was later suggested that the Romulans' data had downplayed the probable intensity of the supernova. And there would've been no way to know for sure which predictions were correct until the supernova happened, which was after the time frame of the novel. So we don't actually know the affected area.

And there wouldn't be a "void," except in an astropolitical and demographic sense. A supernova wouldn't destroy any stars except itself (or perhaps a very close binary companion). Planets in neighboring star systems would be lethally irradiated, perhaps even partially stripped of their atmospheres, but they'd still be physically present, and many would eventually recover or be terraformable once the radiation front had passed.

In reality. In 2009 Star Trek, the supernova was a magical impossible fireball which obliterated everything it touched.

Good point about the ten light year radius being an early underplayed estimate though, I'd forgotten about that.

 

[Christopher]

In reality. In 2009 Star Trek, the supernova was a magical impossible fireball which obliterated everything it touched.

Picard's retcon that the supernova was Romulus's home star makes sense of the image of Romulus being destroyed. So that's not a problem anymore. A supernova would pretty much vaporize anything in its home system. What we're talking about here is other systems light-years away.

 

[DEWLine]

So, whatever communities the Romulans set up first in the habitable systems closest to the home system within that radius would also be done for. We've got a lot of untold history to fill in there...

 

[DEWLine]

As for Freecloud/Alpha Doradus...I'm not sure about calling Freecloud's host sector after Iconia, since Iconia's location wasn't discovered until Picard's term as Enterprise captain, but...

https://michaelchabon.medium.com/some-notes-on-freecloud-c53d4459a41b

 

[jimcat]

Hello everyone, I'm sorry that I don't have a lot more to add to what I've posted already. Just the limited extract of the Gaia data is huge, and difficult to get to grips with. I'm not on Twitter myself, but do feel free to share the link in the first post with anyone who might be interested. It's a fan project, so it's not like I can be ripped off.

@F. King Daniel The "era" of the maps has sort of changed as I was drawing them. They're "contemporary," but only as far as I've got. The Romulan Map is "historical" in that it shows how things were pre-nova. I just don't know enough detail to make a map of the "Picard" Romulans.

@DEWLine The supernova radius will depend on the intensity of the initial explosion, and which precise star blew up. Unless it involves "Star Trek" physics, the blast radius should expand at the speed of light, although the effects will decline the bigger the blast zone gets. If the nova was in 2387 and it's 2399, then it should be a sphere 24 light years in diameter by that point.

@Lakenheath 72 I haven't sweated the distances as much as that, because it's just not possible. Finding candidates for "Bajor" and "Cardassia" in roughly the right part of space and less than ten light-years apart took me ages, and I'm still not altogether happy with them. Thanks for taking a look at the maps, and I'll take this opportunity to say that they are just me playing around with the more detailed star position data. What's where in "Star Trek" is mainly a matter of personal preference, not anything that can ever be established with precision.

@DEWLine That link to the information about Freecloud is fascinating, but really unfriendly to my model of the RNZ! I'll be interested to see if Alpha Doradus is specifically named in the show. It's not very close to Gamma "Hydra" at all, but it is definitely in the Beta Quadrant, as Michael Chabon says.

Best wishes,
Timon

 

[DEWLine]

I suspect that Kurtzman, Chabon, Paradise, McMahon, Osunsanmi, etc. are going to stick fairly close to Star Charts and Stellar Cartography for the region inside the Hipparcos Database "sphere". Outside that sphere, they might be more inclined to use Gaia data...?

And yes, Alpha Doradus was specifically named in the episode "Stardust City Rag".

 

[Christopher]

I suspect that Kurtzman, Chabon, Paradise, McMahon, Osunsanmi, etc. are going to stick fairly close to Star Charts and Stellar Cartography for the region inside the Hipparcos Database "sphere". Outside that sphere, they might be more inclined to use Gaia data...?

I'd be surprised if any of those people had even heard of HIPPARCOS or Gaia. It's not their job to draw the maps, it's the art department's. It was Geoffrey Mandel who chose to use HIPPARCOS data for Star Trek Star Charts; the current shows' art staffers are just adapting the maps from the book because it's a convenient design resource. I doubt it's ever going to make the slightest difference to the plot or drama of a Star Trek episode whether a given star is 22 or 26 light-years from Earth. The travel time will always be whatever the plot requires. Indeed, the less accurate they are about relative star positions, the better, for exactly that reason.

 

[publiusr]

I would not be against a true, real-astronomy-free re-imaging. Shove everything closer

That’s what’s being done with Gliese 710 right now in real life. Every time they update its upcoming approach to our system…it gets closer! When Worlds Collide indeed. That’s where I’d put the reboot Nibiru…

 

[Finn]

I would put Wolf 359 much closer to Earth, and Coridan further out than Vulcan.

 

[Christopher]

I would put Wolf 359 much closer to Earth, and Coridan further out than Vulcan.

Wolf 359 is already the third-closest star system to ours, after Alpha Centauri and Barnard's Star, at 7.9 light years. As it's a real star, its position is non-negotiable, except as astronomical data improves.