It occurred to me that I could really use a proper galactic map this time around...or at least one of the local clusters. Nearly all the sci-fi games/books et al in any media have galaxy maps... Trouble is, I have no idea about how to go about getting one (since I'm going from the basis of the milky way galaxy as opposed to an entirely fictional one a la Star Wars). Presumably there must be some sources somewhere, since everybody and their dog has one (SpaceMaster 2, BattleTech, Star Trek, Mass Effect yada yada yada), but damned if I can find one with a google search...Surely not everyone draws it from painstaking co-ordinates every time? (The mind boggles in that case!)
I suppose I might be able to dig one out of one of my astrology books maybe (whose sole purpose is to support my sci-fi roleplaying), but a computerised one would be better; something publically available that I can modify to suit would be best.
(Actually, come to that, it raises the interesting question of how people draw the maps of Earth for game resources and such? There must be some sort of resource somewhere they copy from surely...? I just realised I really don't know.)
Anybody have any ideas?
I suppose I might be able to dig one out of one of my astrology books maybe (whose sole purpose is to support my sci-fi roleplaying), but a computerised one would be better; something publically available that I can modify to suit would be best.
Anybody have any ideas?
First of all, I hope you mean astronomy not astrology. Anyway, it's kind of hard to understand what type of view you are after.
Something like this maybe?
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galaxy.gif
I would imagine it would be hard to find modifiable ones since most images of galaxies are renderings of how it is perceived to actually be.
Anyway, a google search using "edit" and "galaxy" provided the following link http://www.galaxiki.org. From my brief 10 second look, I think this may be what you are looking for.
First of all, I hope you mean astronomy not astrology.
Yes, if course, it was late when I wrote that...
Anyway, it's kind of hard to understand what type of view you are after.
Something like this maybe?
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galaxy.gif
I would imagine it would be hard to find modifiable ones since most images of galaxies are renderings of how it is perceived to actually be.
Anyway, a google search using "edit" and "galaxy" provided the following link http://www.galaxiki.org. From my brief 10 second look, I think this may be what you are looking for.
Something with a bit more detail would be nice...most galaxy maps I've seen in sci-fi tend to be top-down elevations of the galaxy wth a fair number of the major (local) star-systemw mentioned. Ideally, that'd be what I was looking for. I figure there must be somewhere/something people draw these sort of maps from...
By modifyable, I mean a picture I can stick words and such on top (which tends to leave out 3D models, really).
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
I don't think it's quite what you're looking for, but its a very good program nonetheless.
I'm not sure where to go for a printable map, but there is a 3D scale map of the local group covering the galactic to the planetary scale, here:
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
I don't think it's quite what you're looking for, but its a very good program nonetheless.
I've actually got celestia - or at least one version on my machine. Someone did an extra for the Terran Trade Authority universe which lead me to it. I've never really looked at it too hard though, so I just went and had a good squiz and downloaded the latest version.
Frackin' crap, it's a powerful piece of kit ain't it? Ye gods...
As my new universe was intended to be (moderately) based around real spacial stuff (instead of the general ake-it-up-as-I-go-along I tend to use), I can actually whack in the right time frame and work out how long it'll take to FTL between stars...
Bugger the 2D map, I think...Provided I can manage to work out how to do it, I think I might just use celestia instead. Bit more research first, though, I think.
This might be more of what you are looking for: http://galaxymap.org/drupal/node/45
This map of the universe take a few moments to get oriented and is a novel way of presenting distances; however, the map only works for a single frame of reference (in this case, Earth).
I personally like this rendition of a galactic map: http://www.travellermap.com/ I'd use this to Milky Way stars.
Whatever you decide to do, I do not envy the amount of work ahead of you.
The fact I can pretty much generate proper planet maps, slap them into jpeg and then stick 'em in makes things even better...
Map of the Galaxy: Forget it :D
A Galaxy is huge. And with huge I mean immensily freaking gigantically huge.
Not tiny huge. Really big huge.
Ok compared to a super cluster it is tiny. Really tiny.
Our Galaxy has billions of stars.
But if you really want to get started try this:
http://www.projectrho.com/smap06.html
A little bit math is involved, but with todays computers it can be done.
I have a data base containing most stars within 50 light years in vector coordinates for my own SF universe - wanted to make a Space MMO since 20 years ago or so.
EDIT: Our Galaxy has 200 billion stars. If you just store a little data for each star (e.g. name, x,y,z , type, lumniosity, mass) you need at least 50 bytes per star. So you get about 20 stars per KB so you need 10 TB for the Galaxy.
Good luck :D
First and foremost:
Map of the Galaxy: Forget it :D
A Galaxy is huge. And with huge I mean immensily freaking gigantically huge.
EDIT: Our Galaxy has 200 billion stars. If you just store a little data for each star (e.g. name, x,y,z , type, lumniosity, mass) you need at least 50 bytes per star. So you get about 20 stars per KB so you need 10 TB for the Galaxy.
Good luck :D
Yeah, I wasn't planning on mapping the whole thing star by star! Originally I was looking for something to do something within the reasonably local area, but frankly Celestia is going to be much better, since I can pretty much do anything with it. The fact I can use systems with actual extrasolar planets is even better! I plan nominally to use those as the 'big' solar systems (ala Sol) and slap a few uninhabited rock planets (*cough*that are too small too detect with modern equipment*cough*) around a few more.
I'm working currently on FTL being an average speed of around 3000c or thereabouts (maybe u to twice that given a proper look at extrasolar planetary dispersion); still way below most popular sci-fi (Star Trek's laughably slow Warp Dribe notwithstanding; seriously, I reckon Red Dwarf could give 'em a run for their money some days...) but enough to have a good range of stars within reasonable transit distance. (Approx 1.5 days to Proxima, for example.)