Alioth… at last I have returned home. It was over 7 weeks ago since I last saw this place. I can’t deny that I am glad to be back, but at the same time it feel odd in a way. I have become so used to never leaving my ship, never staying in one system for more than a short time before moving on. Even the sky here looks different, in the core you could look out the viewport and you would barely even see the blackness of space amongst the thousands of stars. Nevertheless, it feels good to finally stand on solid ground once more and not being completely alone is also great. The Alliance was more than glad to have me back as well, the scientists on Donaldson were willing to pay me more than 500 million credits for all the data I collected on my journey. I was quite frankly speechless when I heard how much they gave for it. It’s more than double the amount of money I earned during my entire career as a trader combined! And that was just for one journey! I do think I will wait a while before I head out into the unknown again though. I think I will probably take a few days off and simply relax here.

End of log.

After more than a month of exploring the unknown we have finally returned to Eagle’s Landing. Kirra and her team were more than pleased with the journey, and I even managed to get them back here 1 day earlier than necessary. After a while I also managed to get into contact with a search and rescue contact who could take custody of the escape pods that I recovered. It’s just a shame that I won’t be able to stay long enough for them to be woken up, but now they are in good hands. I have to admit that it feels strange to be all on my own once again in this massive ship. It feels so strange to see the observation decks completely deserted, the scientist used to love that place. Now all that remains is the 7000 Ly journey back home, and now the only time limit I have is my own desire to return to Alioth. I think I will swing by Thor’s Eye on the way back actually, I missed that POI on the first part of my journey. Hopefully I will be back home in a matter of days now, I can’t even imagine how much all the data I carry must be worth. It must be hundreds of millions of credits…

End of log.

I have finally reached the final destination on my journey: Sagittarius A. After 3 weeks of traveling, visiting every outpost and POI on the way I have finally reached the centre of the galaxy. All that time and effort was completely worth it however. I saw many black holes on the way here, but none of them could ever compare to this. The gravitational distortions from Sagittarius A star were visible from star systems several Ly away. But up close it was quite a sight. The black hole itself was as large, if not larger than a Class O star and as I traveled closer the effects just became stronger and stronger. I went as close as I dared to the black hole, stopping at around 50 Ls from the black hole. As I dropped out of supercruise I could feel my ship slowly being pulled towards it. I stayed that close for only a few minutes, admiring the incredible view. When I decided to leave I was quite amazed by the fact that my ship’s FSD almost overheated just entering supercruise away from the black hole. Now, all that remains is the 25000 Ly journey back home. I intend to visit several of the POI on the way back, but I am really starting to get homesick. I look forward to seeing Alioth once more but first I need to drop of Kirra Rowe and her team at Eagle’s Landing. The journey here took a bit longer than expected however, so I will have to hurry if I want to get Kirra and her team back on time. She did say that small delays won’t have a major effect on her work, but I would still prefer to not keep her from her research.

End of Log.

I came across something quite unexpected today. I was driving around and mining in my SRV on a metalic world when my sensors suddenly registered a new contact. My ship was in orbit around the planet at the time and I had not called it down, so I had no idea what this contact was. I followed the energy source on my scanner until I eventually found it. On the edge of a large crater stood a Fer-de-Lance. I immediately hailed the ship, but there was no response. As I approached it I could see that while the ship was for the most part intact, it had suffered severe structural damage. There was no sign of life or activity onboard so I tried to scan the ship. Unfortunately, the ship’s data banks were all either corrupted or protected by several layers of encryption. However the ship did have identification tags painted on the hull. The ship was apparently called “Midnight” and its ID was PA-O3F. I realised that the crew might have ejected from the ship as it crashed, so I began to scour the area for escape pods. After a thorough search of the area I managed to find a total of 6 escape pods, all occupied. I have to wonder what a combat outfitted Fer-de-Lance was doing over 5000 Ly from the nearest outpost, but those questions will have to wait. As I do not possess the equipment required to safely wake the crew I will simply have to put them in my ship’s cargo hold until we reach the next station.

End of log.

Finally. After all this time. After all the stars i discovered. The Pilot’s Federation has at last recognised my talents. I received the message shortly after we docked at Jaques Station. A message telling me that I had officially been granted the rank of Elite. There is no adequate words to describe how I felt as I read that message. I told the news to the scientists accompanying me and they were all very happy for me. We decided to hold a small party in the ship’s lounge later that day. The fact that Jaques Station is a tourism station made it very easy to find the supplies we needed. The party itself seemed to be enjoyed by everyone and the scientist were glad to be able to take a break from their work for once. Soon we will depart for Sagittarius A* and then I can finally head back home to Alioth.

End of log.

After a long journey we finally reached Kirra Rowe’s destination and after a close encounter with the system’s neutron star we traveled to the planet the research team were after. We managed to set down on the planet’s surface, although I can’t say it was an easy task considering that the planet’s gravity was almost 2,5 G. Kirra Rowe and her team quickly set to work on the surface, collecting samples and gathering data. I on the other hand spent most of the time in the ship’s observation deck, staring at the amazing view. I can see why they call this place “Amazing Sky”. The planet is namely located inside of a nebula created when the system’s star went supernova. That, combined with the planet's metallic rings and the close proximity to the galactic core offers a truly spectacular view. Now that the scientist are done with their tasks we will continue towards Colonia.

End of log.

On the surface a small planet in the Blua Hypue EA-T C18-31 system I came across a most curious find today. As I traversed the surface, mining the minerals I suddenly picked up an energy signal on my SRV's wave scanner. At first it was very faint, but as I followed it across several kilometers it grew stronger and stronger. At last I found the source of the signal, an ancient human probe. The probe had sustained heavy damage from its impact with the planet, the core components were surprisingly still intact however. Even more surprising was the fact that not only was the probe still functional, but that even its memory cory was almost completely intact! I downloaded everything i could from the probe's data store and set to work on identifying its who the probe belonged to. After taking a closer look on both the data and the probe itself I eventually concluded that it was an old Federation exploration probe. After looking closer I also found the probe's identification tag "RF-78". I must admit that I am still confused as to how the probe ended up on a planet over 13000 ly away from Sol. However; I am certain that the Federation will no doubt be interested in this find.

End of log.

And I thought that Herbig AE/BE stars were bright! I mean, I knew that class O stars were supposed to be the brightest stellar objects in the known universe. But still, I had not expected it to be as bright as it was. My eyes still hurt hours after since I last looked upon it. Next time I will be prepared though, I have adjusted the canopy settings to automatically go 95% opaque whenever I enter a class O star system. My passengers seemed to enjoy the visit more than me however, they are an interesting bunch. They must have gone through my scans of the star over a dozen times now!

End of log.

Collection of wonders indeed. I had heard many things about this famous star system but it was nothing compared to seeing it in person. Black holes are rare enough themselves, but to find 2 black holes in a binary orbit around each other with a class M star, a white dwarf and a neutron star all with rings around them in the same system. The chances for that are astronomical, and yet here it was. I had dealt with black holes before so I remembered to put my engines in full stop as soon as I entered the system. Flying so close to a black hole is terrifying and amazing at the same time. The distortions created from the black holes still remained visible evan as i tvavelled over 10000 Ls away. The other stellar objects in the system were equally impressive. The rings that had no doubt formed after an unfortunate planetoid had been torn apart by the many high gravity objects in the system were beautiful. The white dwarf star was particularly interesting because of large amounts of gas giants orbiting it. We must have stayed there for hours just looking out the windows of my Beluga liner, just staring at this true wonder of the galaxy.

End of log.

Never having visited one of these stars before I wasn't entirely certain what to expect. The only thing I knew about them was that they were young, relatively small and bright stars. As I entered the system I was fortunate that my ship automatically dimmed the screen as otherwise I would most likely have gone blind from the incredible brightness of the star. Visiting this star was certainly worth the detour on my journey to Sagittarius A and my guest Kirra Rowe and her research team greatly appreciated the chance to study one of these rare stars up close. My ship however is looking quite damaged from the long voyage and I will most likely have to stop by at closest outpost for maintenance.

End of log.