24 June 3306

Having been left broke by my Type 10 rebuy, I decided to earn some money with one of the activities I like the most: exploring.

Now, I didn't want to fly for days, so I selected a few points of interest just outside of the Bubble, mostly giants, black holes and neutron stars, but also the Ring Nebula (Shapley 1). On my way there, I only discovered two new systems but it didn't matter. Several worlds hadn't been mapped yet, so I checked which ones were the most rewarding and scanned them.

After my return, I made enough money to pay one rebuy for Obelisk in case the worst happens but not enough to feel really comfortable flying her around the Bubble. I needed more money and quick.

I first took an order for some tritium at Deciat and flew to Taueret. There, I heard they needed Agronomic treatments, promising anyone who would deliver the goods to pay them around 250000 credits a tone. That was fortunate. Shaplitin, a system nearby, was selling Agronomic treatments for 4500 credits a tone. Obelisk is outfitted to carry 240 tones, so I filled my cargo racks with Agronomic treatments In only three trips, taking not more than five minutes each, I was able to earn more than 15 millions of credits, more than 5 millions of profit each time.

It's not LTD, but it was more rewarding than carrying tritium and less risky: pirates seemed to have no interest in Agronomic treatments.

22 June 3306

When I look at the map of my unplanned travel, I'm really amazed at the distance I covered with Diabound, my Asp. I just wanted to see the Pleiades. A few days ago, I landed on a fleet carrier, A Moment's Rest, in the Bubble Nebula. And, yet, it's just a small portion of our galaxy.

While flying to the Cave nebula, I discovered my first Earth-Like World.

Other than that, I also crossed path with a gas giant really close to its star.

Other than that, there isn't much to say. I made the trip from Bubble Nebula to Ceos in less than one day. Having accumulated more than 2,000,000 credits, I wanted to buy a new ship and also engineer Diabound more for my next trip.

At first, I thought of buying a Beluga somewhere in Ceos. I like big ships and the Beluga perfectly suits my taste. But then I saw pictures of the Type 10.

Almost everyone hates the Type 10. It's bigger than the Type 9 but doesn't carry much more. It's supposed to be a defender ship, especially against the thargoids, but has failed at that too. It's huge and flies like a brick or a space truck driven by a drunk teenager.

But it also looks like a giant, armoured Asp Explorer that doesn't have time for your BS and will ram you to death if you insist. I love my Asp. I want a giant, armoured Asp. So I left for the nearest place to buy a Type 10.

So now I am the proud owner of Obelisk Lazy Delivery. She's blue and she takes too much space but I love her and she can deliver your courrier, food, legal drugs and whatnot fast enough if you're too lazy to go get it yourself. Unless you live in an outpost, in which case, sorry, I can't deliver there.

Of course, after outfitting her (they asked how many multi cannons I wanted, I said "all of them"), I was mostly broke, even more after encountering a few problems. There was also that time where her canopy broke because someone really wanted my cargo and I had to jettison it, then fly to a station with big landing pads several systems away. I was lucky to have enough mats to synthesise oxygene because, guess what, I was a bit too short for rebuying her. Then, yesterday, I lost her while bounting hunting and collecting mats. Not because of the pirates, you see, no, but because I, hm, well, shredded a cop to pieces and then the cops shredded me to pieces before I jumped away. I didn't mean to destroy them, their ship really looked like the pirate's one and apparently eight engineered multi cannons are a lot even against a small ship. To think I thought of leaving 5 minutes before that because I wanted to collect my money at the nearest station but then I decided I could fight one more pirates.

Fortunately, I could pay for the insurance but I took the decision to safely store her until I've earned enough money for several rebuys. I hate mining, so I'll explore again with Diabound now that I've increased his jump to 53-55ly. Also I may have steal something from the prison guards so I really think I should spend a few days or weeks far from the Bubble.

20 June 3306

Dear Commander of A Moment's Rest fleet carrier, you made my visit to the Bubble Nebula so much pleasant. I hope the datas I sold on your mighty ship will be useful and I will make sure to visit again in some weeks to enjoy a beer in the commanders mess. This nebula is one of my favourite place now. It's blue, it's round, it's shiny like a jewel and there are there people who makes the galaxy a better place.

For those interested, A Moment's Rest is located in Bubble Sector LX-T B3-1 which also happens to have two POI.

By the way, I solemnly swear that I'm not the one who stole the collection of Hutton mugs exposed in the mess.

[feel free to use those pics of your fleet carrier if you want to, CMDR.]

20 June 3306

I visited NGC 281 also knows as the Pacman nebula some days ago. Honestly, I'm a bit mad that the galactic map doesn't call it Pacman nebula. I hate numbers and I have to check its name several times. Did they use Westerhout 5 for Soul nebula? Or Sharpless 2-199? No. Please, show some respect to the poor ghost eater.

Pacman is a bright emission nebula although probably not as bright as Heart and Soul nebulae. Yet, it was still nice to see something else than red-glowing emission nebula. Blue emissions. I think it's caused by ionized oxygen while red emissions are caused by hydrogen but I'm no scientist. There are also dark areas which are clouds of cosmic dust. I've just learned it's called Bok globules and it's often there that stars and stars clusters are born. They are literally star nurseries!

Watch out, one of the baby stars is trying to escape their play yard!

Oh no, now there are two of them and they are staring at me.

This trip gave me the opportunity to visit a few planets and even get a nice shot of two galaxies.

Until now, I've been calling them "big galaxies in the sky" but they're actually called Nubecula Major and Nubecula Minor which is a fancy name for large and small Magellanic clouds. I wonder if someone there is looking up at the Milky way in awe. Or perhaps we're just another boring spiral galaxy.

Wait, are you trying to escape too? Pacman, you're really bad at keeping those stars in your mouth.

Next stop, the Bubble nebula. See you around?

18 June 3306

As long as you aren't bored of seeing red and pink clouds, Heart and Soul nebulae are a feast for the eyes. Explorers can snap a lot of great shots here.

I don't regret the long trip although I'd have loved to be able to sell my data to Soul. But I won't dwell on this any longer.

I landed at Farsight Expedition Base in where I sold my data, then headed for two fleet carriers that were stationed there: V68-H3T and F69-X2J. I was really excited since it was the first time I was seeing one of those big ships.

I swear, no ship were harmed during that landing. I have proof.

Also, if something expensive has disappeared from those ships since my visit, it wasn't me. Je le jure, votre honneur.

I have two very important questions: how many people do I need to rob to buy one of those? And can I have a Las Vegas carrier with casinos and rivers of champagne? I suppose I'll find out when I'm back to the Bubble.

After that, I did a bit of sightseeing and visited a Memorial for Fluk.

I'm myself more a snake people than a dog people but it's nice to see that people still care about their pets even now, in space. I just wish it was dog or bone-shaped. Someone in the engineering department got lazy.

After that, I warped away. My next goal is NGC 281, then the Bubble nebula, then the Cave nebula, then the Veil Nebula West and, finally, the Bubble.

16 June 3306

There's nothing more disheartening than making the trip for the Soul and Heart nebula and choosing the wrong outpost after a 60 jumps long day trip.

It was my fault, to be honest. I didn't pay attention to the news with the exception of the new Galnet's headline story about the Vitadyne Medecines. When I arrived in Soul Sector EL-Y d7, I didn't realise the system was on lockdown. I was tired, I just wanted to sell my discoveries before going to sleep, and I couldn't. Fortunately, the Heart's outpost was only ten jumps away and I made the trip the following day.

Here a few photos of both nebulae. I took a lot more since but I'll tell you another day.

I'm a space photograph, now.

15 June 3306

It has been two weeks since I last wrote something to my logbook. Some people may have thought I finally crashed for good on a planet. But, no, I'm well and alive, and currently resting in front of Memorial for Fluk's listening post in Heart Sector IR-V b2-0.

But today I don't want to talk about a memorial dedicated to someone's beloved Golden Retriever, mostly because I want to do a separate log about it with a few nice pictures of the area. Also, there are stranger things in the universe than a memorial, stranger things like this, an ASP in front of three stars.

If I'm not mistaken, you can see these in Outordy QB-D c13-0, a quintenary system.

During my trip to the Soul Nebula, I also found three Water World, two of which that are terraformable, in Hegua BV-G d10-29. The discovery in itself would be nothing remarkable if it weren't for the distance separating one of this Water World from the others: more than 150,000Ls. You need to be patient if you want to have a closer look but, at the same time, it's nothing compared to the trip to Hutton Orbital (don't forget to grab your free Anaconda).

These ladies were first discovered by Commander Alexey Petroof and should be first mapped by me. I decided to call them "The Distant relatives".

Oh, and before I forget, can the creator of the universe retrieve their sparkling diamonds before I steal them all?

01 June 3306

All commanders have wondered at least once what that string of bright stars in the sky can possibly be.

The O stars of the NGC 7822 nebula are sometimes called "Siren of the Spinward Stars". Everyone wants to visit them, after all. But for me, they look more like the pearls of a precious necklace. And precious they are, at least for scientists and adventurers. Unfortunately, you can't steal the O stars, you can only scan them and make some money with the data. Some of them are orbited by black holes. There's also the Cauldron of God in S171 37, a world so inhospitalable that it might be the worst in the whole galaxy. I won't retire there, for sure...

I haven't visited the Cauldron yet, I'm saving it for my return trip to the Bubble, after visiting the heart and soul nebula. Everything looks so far away now, but I know I'm far from reaching the borders of the milky way.

I want to upgrade Diabound again and maybe buy a new ship for, hm, helping rich commanders to get rid of their LTD and other precious goods... Don't say I'm not a generous guy. I sold my data, by the way, and made a few first discoveries. Sometimes, I wonder if someone will ever build colonies on those planets or even land of them again. Is there any purpose in doing this outside of the money and the breathtaking views? I wish I could create a safe haven far far away for tired explorers.

25 May 3306

A lot of systems look identical unlike you have a genuine passion for questions such as "how old is this T Tauri star compared to the others" and "is that planet bigger or smaller than the three thousand icy bodies I've already found?".

And then you stumbled on a system rich of discoveries. IC 1396 Sector WO-D b14-0 is one of them. I didn't expect anything in particular when I warped to it but I was welcomed by a few interesting signals. This system has two Proto Lagrange Clouds. Those clouds aren't impressive by any means, don't expect anything mind-blowing, but there are a lot of Purpureum, Flavum and Prasinum metallic crystals as well as Albulum Gourd Molluscs to scan near them. There are also planets with geological POI such as Water Ice Fumaroles. Cesire sur le gâteau, you will also find a Terraformable Water World.

So if you're around this system and need to complete your codex, be sure to visit.

13 May 3306

As I'm heading to NGC 7822, I think it's time to look back a bit.

Some days ago, I travelled through the North America and the Pelican Nebulae, then the Elephant's trunk. They're all so beautifully hanging in the night sky that I couldn't resist to pay them a visit before flying deeper into the outer region of our galaxy.

On my way, I landed on a few bodies, one of them reminding me of the title of a very old novel from Kim Stanley Robinson that I found on a space station: Mars la rouge (unfortunately, it was the French translation).

I also discovered several systems and planets, including two terraformable water worlds with thin carbon dioxide rich atmosphere, one orbiting around the first. I've decided to call them Abzû and Tiamat, which are the names of the two primordial gods of Babylon. You can find them in Prooe Drye BM-C D5.

I eventually made it to the Elephant's Trunk, where I decided to sell my data. Thanks to my previous experience in Sadr, I didn't hit an asteroid and I safely landed at the Elephant's Trunk mine.

I find the Elephant's Trunk rather... underwhelming compared to other nebulae. I probably expected too much. I didn't take pictures and left rather quickly since there's nothing to do at the Elephant Trunk's mine except for sneaking in quarters and borrowing interesting objects, including old books that I want to numerise. Since then, I only stopped two times at a few biological sites in order to collect mats. When I go back to the bubble - well, if i ever go back -, I'll be able to engineer my ships immediately.

I'm currently parking here but I'll soon leave for my destination.