A few logs ago I hinted that I'd like to head off to the Formidine Rift and I have indeed decided to do that. So I've done a fair bit of research into Salome and the mystery surrounding this area of space.

I recently visited Tionisla, where I scanned tourist beacon 0676, "Curious Transmission Partially Decoded", the download from the beacon describes an apparently meaningless clear-text phrase "The vain queen rides a giraffe that remembers her daughter's hero". My own knowledge allows me to deduce some facts from this phrase,

1. the vain queen is Cassiopeia - a constellation seen from Earth
2. a giraffe is also a constellation seen from Earth - Camelopardalis, and indeed the vain queen does appear to be sitting on it.
3. Cassiopeia's daughter was Andromeda and her hero was Perseus who rescued her from the sea monster. Andromeda and Perseus are both constellations seen from Earth.

Cassiopeia, Camelopardalis and Perseus meet very near the galactic equator and very near the Heart and Soul nebulae, a vector from Earth that goes between these nebulae will reach the Eafots region where the 4 bases were found. And due to the distance also a vector from Reorte through Riedquat arrives at the same place. These two systems are also mentioned in my research.

I've found this all very intriguing, so my adventure is definitely heading out that way.

CMDR Kris Afron signing off. Fly safely commanders.

My last port of call was the furthest object in the solar system, Persephone.

But there was a surprise waiting for me, the lonliest place in the solar system wasn't quite as bereft of life as I was expecting, there's a large government installation called Primary Transport Authority and quite a few employees flying around.

So that was the tour over, just the journey home to do now nearly 500,000 ls. But I took a view of our home sun before I set off.

Sol is the one in the middle if you can't tell. They all look the same from here just like an ordinary star.

Having done my tourist bit I took a final shot when I got back to Earth, a well worthwhile journey. To think it used to take probes tens of years to do the journey that I've just done in a few hours - it is kind of mind blowing.

CMDR Kris Afron signing off. Fly safe commanders.

Fresh from a nights rest I took off from Haumea and headed for 2007 OR10, a small body in the depths of the Kuiper Belt.

and the next nearest was Eris,

The light is exceptionally dim out here, so the photos are needing a lot of brightness and contrast enhancing to bring out the details. I visited Makemake next.

Next up I travelled over 300,000 ls to get to Sedna.

One more log to make.

CMDR Kris Afron signing off. Fly safe commanders.

Still got a long way to go and also the majority of objects. Next stop is Pluto and Charon.

Followed by the next nearest Kuiper Belt body, 90482 Orcas and its moon Vanth.

My next stop is object 2002 MS4,

Quaoar, was the next target

Salacia and Actaea,

And I called this journey to a close for the day at Haumea, where I landed and took my overnight rest, some long journeys ahead tomorrow with 6 more bodies to visit.

Well goodnight all.

CMDR Kris Afron signing off. Fly safely commanders.

So continuing my tour I came to Columbus in orbit around Io, Jupiter's closest moon, the one with all of the volcanism.

And followed on with a visit to Titan City around Saturn.

Then Uranus, no stations so I headed for a view of Ariel, some mighty impressive grooves on this little moon.

… and then on to Neptune.

More to come, but the light is dim out here so I've had to enhance the shots I've taken so you can see the objects.

CMDR Kris Afron signing off. Fly safely commanders

You know how you never do the things that things that are local to where you live? They are always there so you can do them anytime you like, but never get around to it?

When I adopted Sol as my home system, once I'd got the permit, I said to myself "one day I must visit all of the bodies that orbit Sol".

Well, yesterday I was at a loose end so I decided to do just that. I set of from Galileo orbiter, which is my home base and headed to Mercury.

The first port of call was Erlich City on the surface.

I'd transported 64 tonnes of Gold and sold it and picked up Food Cartridges to sell at Daedalus.

From there I picked up another cargo of Gold and took it to Burnell Station in orbit over Venus.

There was no profit in further transportation so the trip to Mars, missing out Earth as I would be returning there, was with an empty cargo hold.

Next stop Jupiter.

CMDR Kris Afron signing off. Fly safely commanders.

I took Suto'vo'qor to YZ Ceti for some combat trials in the RES[High] area of the icy rings around planet 10.

She was performing well, but I accidentally shot one of the good guys, oh dear! That cost me some time in detention.

From there I headed off to Ez Aquarii to collect some materials at USS sites and what do you know, some pirate decided that I was a good target for interdiction. Seeing as this was one of the reasons why I put this vessel together I submitted to it and as soon as I had come to a halt I took the offensive to my aggressor. A couple of minutes later he was stardust, very satisfying.

I think that I can call this trial a success!

CMDR Kris Afron signing off. Fly safely commanders.

I needed a heavily armed vessel with some means of carrying a tempting cargo. My plan is to lure pirates into interdicting me and then to give the bleeps a taste of their own medicine.

My Viper Mk III wouldn't be up to the job as there are not enough optional compartments to fit a cargo hold without losing a necessary module. So I looked at my Federal Gunship and that too was in the same position.

It has to be something else.

A bit of research on Coriolis.io identified the Alliance Chieftain as a reasonably priced solution. I could get a 64 tonne cargo rack, with a decent fuel scoop, plenty of Guardian Shield Reinforcement packages and a decent set of hardpoints too. Shield and hardpoint-wise it would be about equivalent to the Federal Gunship and a bit more manoeuvrable.

Off to Shinrarta Dezhra in the Federal Gunship, stripped all of the engineered modules, weapons and utility modules off of it and exchanged it - traded it up (maybe?). Most off the stripped modules got retro-fitted and two or three trips to engineers got the job done.

I present my new Sto'vo'qor,

Combat trials to commence very soon. Then I go pirate hunting.

CMDR Kris Afron signing off. Fly safely commanders.

Yesterday I headed off into the void to go mining in the Anaconda. Filled her up with limpets and headed for a system about 1000 ly out, about 30 jumps.

As I proceeded I checked systems for gas giants with rings and found a nice system after 16 jumps. I approached the nearest gas giant, scanned the rings and headed for the Low Temperature Diamond hot spot that I discovered.

This continued in a couple more systems, scanning rings and mining the hotspots that I found. My eventual haul was

22 Alexandrite.

75 Low temperature Diamonds.

16 Monazite.

3 Serendibite.

36 Benitoite and,

17 Grandidierite.

Having used all the limpets (192) it was time to head back to the bubble, but before I did I checked selling prices for all on EDDB. If I sold at average it would bring about 44 mil CR, but if I took the time to go to the places with the best prices it could fetch nearly 170 mil CR.

First stop Derrickson's Escape at Keries with all of the ores, then to Cavalieri at Electra to sell the Diamonds. One avoided Thargoid later and I was sitting pretty on just over 166 mil CR. Blow me, the Anaconda paid for itself in one trip and netted enough extra to get it fitted with a 6A FSD!

Mucho happy with my choice of large mining vessel.

CMDR Kris Afron signing off.

I'm kind of hankering to get back to the black and away from civilisation. I'm thinking that I'd like to do the Formadine Rift area and see some sites at the same time, but that's for later - it will need some careful planning.

I've also been thinking about the success I've had with mining in tlhIlwI' loSmaH Hut, my Asp. It has limited cargo capacity (64 tonnes) and I also had to sacrifice the Auto-Docking Computer to fit a Detailed Surface Scanner because of the limited optional module space. That is no problem, I'm OK with manual dockings.

So I've been looking at buying and outfitting a bigger ship especially for high cargo mining expeditions, in the end it came down to a choice between a Python and an Anaconda.

I eventually decided on the Anaconda, the disadvantages being the cost and the need for a large docking bay, but the much larger cargo capacity won out.

So now I own one, fitted out with all the mining tools and 256 tonnes of cargo space. I managed to outfit it with quite a few engineering modules that I had in storage at Shinrata Dezhra to keep the cost down, did it for 150,191,353 CR and compromised on a 5A Frame Shift Drive to do that (one of the stored modules).

CMDR Kris Afron signing off.