On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Fonts/Mapmaking/Trek Fandom: A Particular Need

2026-01-14T00:05:41Z

I'm shopping for a particular kind of font family. Looks close to Helvetica UCE, has multiple weights like Gravitica Compressed or Tungsten and has at least two character sets in addition to Latin. Greek and Cyrillic at least.

Can anyone here help me with this?

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Yawn...what am I doing?

2025-12-06T04:04:08Z

I just realized that I have eight or nine different star mapping projects on the go with various members of the Tranquility Press gang.

All this has been building up over the last five years, partly to cope with other stuff and partly for fun and research giggles (which have been plentiful).

More as I think it over.

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Portfolio Day

2025-10-15T00:56:45Z

I did a "Portfolio Day" thing on Bluesky tonight.

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Checking In - 30 Sept. 2025

2025-10-01T02:10:27Z

No word on the skills tests from Sunday yet. I'm expecting that tomorrow.

My visit with Mom was shorter than I'd planned, because of chores and a newish job lead I needed to look into.

One of my map projects' requirements was something different than what I expected, and the news has come as both a relief and an entertaining challenge.

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Star Trek Mapping: Getting Reoriented

2025-09-19T01:42:46Z

Okay, where was I? 50 Leonis, Bowler 15 (yes, there's a star with that actual catalogue number!), 5 Puppis, Omicron Leonis, Ross 391...

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Star Trek Mapping: COCONUTS-3A and the Klingon Empire

2025-08-30T02:35:30Z

Would you believe that there is a star that humans have catalogued as "COCONUTS-3A" (among other catalogue numbers) and that for Star Trek purposes, it is just coreward of places like Morska and Rura Penthe?

You can look it up on SIMBAD.

I wonder what the Klingons' identification of it is.

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Star Trek Mapping: A Question of Rotarran

2025-08-21T00:03:12Z

A StarTrek StarCharts/StellarCartography question:

I suspect that HD 29172 used to be the preferred host star for Rotarran, thanks to the Hipparcos Mission data. Gaia Mission seems to have corrected the location of that star from 204 ly from Sol to 521 ly, though.

Granted that the shows as broadcast from 2017 are mostly sticking with the XY placements of known stars as published back in 2002. That's an editorial decision I mostly accept.

Here's some of the candidates I'm looking at, encircled for your review and discussion. Among them, HD 17224 is an A0V, and the thing that gives me pause about that star is that it's over 300 ly "below" Z=0.

I'm looking for opinions, rather than definitive answers here.

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Star Trek Mapping: Confirming a Binary?

2025-08-19T00:26:09Z

I'm wondering about two stars, WT 767 and 768, both in Indus (I believe, after checking Gaia Sky), and it looks to me as if they're barely a light-year from each other. If I'm correct, they might be a candidate as "host" stars for Sullivan's Planet from "The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail".

In which case, maybe HD 205156 can serve as "Helicon"?

I'm also asking my WT 767+768 question on the Celestia Discord server.

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Checking In - 16 August 2025

2025-08-16T17:10:46Z

Chores.

That's my word for today.

Bedding-laundry, shopping, computer-mouse replacement, new colour-pencils for Mom, and if I can push myself the rest of the way, new storage bins to keep the basement reorg process going. Not sure that last item is going to be doable with today's local weather. Hot and humid.

Talked with the writer of San Francisco 2161 last night about proposed maps for his now-finished Trek-inspired fanfic project about the negotiations to co-found the Federation. What maps should there be attached, what forms they should take, that sort of thing.

I'm also toying with an idea for a prose fanfic project of my own centred on one of the participants in that story and a prequel, In the Raptor's Claws about the Coaltion-Romulan War that preceded the Federation. Specifically Nathan Samuels, whom Enterprise-watchers may remember as portrayed by Harry Groener. Not sure if this is going to go anywhere beyond maybe a couple of paragraphs before getting derailed by a job offer or loss of housing or whatever.

We'll see.

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Star Trek Mapping: Surveillance Station Question

2025-07-28T01:55:58Z

Do the Epsilon stations have to be located in actual star systems? Or can they be "freestanding"?
(Also wondering if "Epsilon" stations imply the existence of series of stations designated "Alpha" through "Delta".)

Yeah, this is tied to the Edge of Midnight map projects.

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Exoplanets: L 98-59 and the Argument Over Five Vs. Six Planets

2025-07-16T02:33:57Z

This system's about 34 light-years away.

This paper argues for five:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09343

This one argues for six:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06413

If I understand what I'm reading correctly.

For Trek purposes? Romulan territory until the supernova that burns Romulus and Remus is my guess.

http://hygmap.space/index.php?select_star=853855&select_center=1&u=ly

For Marvel, DC, Honorverse, Babylon 5, Galaxy Quest, Alien, Traveller, or anything else? I dunno yet. (Well, maybe Solarian League for the Honorverse? Do I want to keep caring about that anymore?)

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Star Trek Mapping: Harmonizing the Maps

2025-07-12T13:17:35Z

Working on multiple maps of the same region of #StarTrek 's version of our galaxy is fun. It's also research-intensive and time-consuming, especially where keeping the various maps consistent with each other is concerned.

From last night's progress to such ends in support of several Tranquility Press fanfic projects...

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Star Trek Mapping: The Two Axolotls

2025-06-22T14:27:54Z

Entertaining accident: Decades ago, when Masao Okazaki was putting his Starfleet Museum site together, he assigned the name "Axolotl" to a planet orbiting Gliese 767A.

In 2019, the IAU and Mexico named the star HD 224693 "Axólotl" as part of that year's Name ExoWorlds event.

We have precedent in Star Trek for this sort of thing, thankfully, so I'm not worrying over it.

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Star Trek Mapping: Mapping Rimward Systems - A Surprise in Monoceros

2025-06-10T03:01:56Z

I found out today - or was reminded today, I'm not entirely sure as I've downloaded resources from the IAU on the subject of star names in the past year and then neglected to review them carefully - that in 2015, a star in Monoceros - HD 45652 - was named "Lusitânia", in connection with their Name ExoWorlds programme. The one known planet orbiting it is named "Viriato". For the purposes of the projects I'm working on with the Tranquility Press fanfic gang, it's in Klingon space as of 2240-2410.

I love that this astronomical naming process is picking up speed in my lifetime!

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Star Trek Mapping: Coreward Breen Spaces

2025-05-15T02:00:38Z

Having a little fun with the map projects before bed. Equuelus, Hercules, Sagitta, Corona Borealis, Aquila, that general neighbourhood. Places like Kitalpha, Ancha, Bunda, Libertas? Breen neighbourhoods!

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Trek Fan Mapping, Continued: Five Projects Now

2025-03-30T02:22:45Z

Works in progress, all, uploaded to DeviantArt a night or two ago:

https://www.deviantart.com/dewline-ottawa/art/Dominion-War-Base-Map-28-March-2025-1176423191

https://www.deviantart.com/dewline-ottawa/art/Coreward-From-the-Izar-Zakdorn-Line-28-Mar-2025-1176427032

https://www.deviantart.com/dewline-ottawa/art/Taurus-Reach-And-Beyond-28-Mar-2025-A-1176436890

https://www.deviantart.com/dewline-ottawa/art/Edge-of-Midnight-Disputed-Zone-28-Mar-2025-A-1176439292

https://www.deviantart.com/dewline-ottawa/art/RomulanZoneBaseMap-28Mar2025-A-1176456387

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Maps: A Tutorial for the Vulgarian (Updated Edition)

2025-03-07T02:52:37Z

I needed to correct for Puerto Rico.

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Maps: A Tutorial for the Vulgarian

2025-03-06T13:45:08Z

Feel free to use it:

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Star Trek Mapping: Persephone

2025-01-08T03:15:11Z

I don't think that 42 Ursae Majoris is a good candidate for the Persephone system. It looks like a potential neighbour when you view the galaxy from above/below, sure...

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Trek Fan Mapping, Continued: Majalis and Prospect

2025-01-06T03:01:54Z

How difficult can it be to find a star at a particular set of X-Y coordinates in this galaxy - within our own Orion Arm - with a neighbour that's 0.67 pc/2 ly away?

More difficult than I expected.

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Trek Fan Mapping: Letter Grades for Spectral Type Accuracy

2024-12-21T02:34:03Z

I finally learned about data accuracy grading in SIMBAD a couple of nights ago. They have a five-level scale currently, going from A (best) to E (worst), and that letter is usually at the back end of the "Spectral type:" line item in any given star's profile data. For example, "F5V C". "F5 E" for another.

Of course, I'm making do with the data I have and the published and aired location data from the episodes and movies of the various branch series of Star Trek here...

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Trek Fan Mapping, Continued: Around the Delta Triangle Part 1

2024-12-16T03:43:53Z

So a new offshoot from my Tranquility Press fanfic map projects takes me rimward in the direction of Auriga, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Orion and so forth. The Hyades, Pleiades, the spinward side of Gorn-claimed space, rimward of the Klingons...and the Delta Triangle.

Created for the first animated Trek series episode "The Time Trap", it was a region known for the same kind of mysterious disappearances as Earth's Bermuda Triangle until Jim Kirk and company went digging around in the neighbourhood and found out where some of the vanishing spacecraft of multiple star nations across the centuries had ended up.

Based on material from Star Charts and Stellar Cartography, I picked out candidates for two of the three "anchor" stars of the Triangle, and now I'm working on filling in the surrounding neighbourhood with continued help from HYGMap.space...

Noting that, aside from Bellatrix, the other two stars I chose are not necessarily locked in. I'm open to alternative candidates.

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Trek Fan Mapping, Continued: Around the Cardassian Union II

2024-10-06T13:50:29Z

So I thought that V442 Ursae Majoris might be a good candidate for Amleth (Memory Alpha) (Memory Beta). Five stars in the system and all that?

Turns out that it's a bit further rimward than I want for it.

I think I'm just going to settle for something close to the published X-Y coordinates. If anyone here knows of something good enough...?

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Trek Fan Mapping, Continued: Around the Cardassian Union

2024-10-01T02:39:58Z

Crossed these off the to-do list today:

Gon'Cra
Deep Space 3
Starbase 514
24 Aquarii
Jod'Cor
Mivic
Huranzi
Latroci
Septimus

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Dominion War Map Design

2024-09-22T15:40:59Z

A sense of what I'm working on for fun right now.

https://mastodon.social/@DEWLine/113181955177986765

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