Looking at some old floppy disks of mine I found a program I had written that used stellar right ascensions and declination to determine which Star Trek sector the nearest stars would fall into. It took a sector to be 20 ly in diameter (as per the ST encyclopedia, with Sector 001 being a 20x20x20 ly cube with Sol at it's center, 10 ly away from the cetnerpoint of each of the six faces of the cube. According to it, the following star systems are all in Sector 001: Sol α Cen A-B-C Barnard's Star Wolf 359 Lalande 21185 Luyten 726-8 A-B Sirius A-B Ross 154 Ross 248 ε Eri 61 Cyg A-B ε Ind Groombridge 34 A-B Lacaille 9352 A-B Giclas 51-15 Lacaille 8760 Kapteyn's Star OMG! Sol isn't even the most luminous star in its own sector
They were lying. Anyone from a blue-white/white dwarf binary doesn't need sunglasses on Earth...they'd need their version of night vision.
It's not even close. Viewed from a planet orbiting Rigil Kent, the nearest G-type star in the Alpha Centauri trinary, Sol would appear in the constellation of Cassieopeia and it would be only the 8th brightest star in their sky.
I remember making this file...it's pretty cool. It covers the cube of Sector 001 and the 26 sectors that would border it, either at a face, an edge, or a vertex (kind of like a Rubik's cube). Sectors 002 through 009 are the 8 that border the "equator" of Sector 001 (δ=0), starting at (α=0) and running clockwise. The brightest star in Sector 002 is τ Cet, and the brightest in Sector 004 is Procyon, followed by π Ori and 40 Eri A-B-C, where Vulcan is
why would sectors be cubic in nature? given the shape of the galaxy, you'd have a whole lot of sectors consisting entirely of hydrogen gas, rikers shavings and the odd floating turd jettisoned by passing ships.
Since the Galaxy is three dimensional, of course For example, σ Dra would be in the sector directly "above" Sector 001 (001+), relative to the galactic plane and δ Pav would be in the sector directly "below" Sector 001 (001-)
Hey, it's something never really discussed before. The thread will either stand or fall on its own merit Perhaps it belongs in a geekier forum
Well, the diameter of the galaxy is 100 times greater than its thickest point. Think of it as an 8.5"x8.5" (or about 21cmx21cm) piece of construction paper. It's thickness would only be 2.1 mm. But also, the thickness isn't constant.
don't make the string theorists come after you with pitchforks! anyhoo, any spatial curavture and gravtic distortion of spacetime would surely make a joke of any straight lines?
You'd only need 50 cubes at the galaxy's thickest point (which is probably closer to the center of the galaxy).
That brings up the notion that, although DS9 in particular loved to say Alpha Quadrant this and Alpha Quadrant that, the Klingon and Romulan Empires are actually in the Beta Quadrant, as is part of the UFP. In fact, so is Earth for six months a year
More pointedly, intelligent life would be more hard pressed to arise during the lifetime of a star like Sirius
Have to be some cloud cover, since Sirius A is 16 tims brighter than the Sun...and 3000+ degrees K hotter. There's not a lot of room for planets, either, since Sirius B is only about 20 AU's away and has already gone through the red giant phase, so any planets were probably barbecued. Poor lizards never had a chance.
Can't remember if I've posted these here before. They are my own interpretations: TOS Federation and known space TNG era Federation and known space (note the scale change)
This is a really good website: http://www.stdimension.org/int/Cartography/cartography.htm http://www.stdimension.org/int/Cartography/SectorList.htm http://www.stdimension.org/int/Cartography/DistanceList.htm http://www.stdimension.org/int/Cartography/RealStars.htm http://www.stdimension.org/Cartography/Source/maphist1.jpg http://www.stdimension.org/Cartography/Source/maplocal.jpg
