On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Yes, this is for the Edge of Darkness project.

Right now, I'm re-reading Star Charts and Stellar Cartography

1. GJ 3414
2. HD 10226

The latter is 150+ ly below "galactic equatorial". The former is 21 ly above it.

Other considerations for my choice?

Needs to be close to the core systems because of events in the DS9 episode "In the Pale Moonlight" where Betazed is taken by Dominion forces. Quoting Memory Alpha: "With Betazed captured, other nearby worlds, including Vulcan, Tellar, Alpha Centauri, and Andor, were at risk of Dominion attack."

(If you've got those systems within striking distance, Sol's in range, too, right?)

Also, it needs to be on the "roads" between those systems and Bajor/Cardassia's neighbourhood, which is roughly 100 ly above "galactic equatorial". If you look up from Earth towards the Ursa Major-Draco constellation border with a strong enough telescope, you should see the alleged home stars of those planets.

Looks like a "Serpens-Sagittarius Spur" newly recognized as such based on Phil Plait's commentary today here: 

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/newly-discovered-structure-in-the-milky-way

Opinions?

The job search continues. I've got two offers, one I have to decline because lack of experience and temperament. The other seems to be real, and might be interesting. There's no guarantees, of course, but I'll wait for the reply to my reply.

While I keep looking for other leads in the meantime, there's this episode of Ideas about the sounds of space, "Music on Mars". And there is sound to be listened to and to be listened for.

More later...

More good stuff from Kevin Jardine.

Stars with planets are green-circled with numbers of known planets where known. And some extra stuff thrown in that we didn't know we needed to chart...

https://twitter.com/galaxy_map/status/1337901467160743939

If you think a map of the "high points" of the nearby regions of the Orion Arm of our galaxy might be useful to you...

In advance of my presentation this afternoon, here are the links for my 800 parsecs map release today:https://t.co/1CAfPrF0qX pic.twitter.com/430wEW8TGE

— Galaxy Map (@galaxy_map) June 29, 2020

Back to my job search...

It's always going to be incomplete, of course, but this gives a better "broad brushstrokes" sense of the local region of the Orion Arm, right?

https://twitter.com/galaxy_map/status/1265714622746759170

Kevin Jardine just posted a progress report on his 50 Parsec Map Project today on Twitter. In the course of that report, he notes the proximity of HD 10180 - currently known to host at least six planets and suspected to host as many as three more - to Achernar/alpha Eridani.

Now, where does it get interesting for Star Trek fans?

Here, per a Memory Alpha entry caused by a reference in dialogue in the Original Series episode "Wolf in the Fold", written by Robert Bloch. (Yes, that Robert Bloch. The Psycho scriptwriter. And yes, that episode - adapted by Bloch from his 1943 Jack the Ripper-inspired short story is one of many that we can now see as Problematic in ways that were not clear to the eyes of the dominant factions of American society in the late 1960's.)

Anyway, Star Charts and Stellar Cartography put Achernar inside Romulan-held territories from 2161 - the end of the Earth-Romulan War - to at least 2387, and the destruction of Romulus and Remus that year. HD 10180 would be close enough - 15 light-years distant, per the planetarium-'ware Celestia - to be considered another Romulan holding.

Had this pointed out to me a few minutes ago at NCF's Speakers' Corner:

https://www.physics-astronomy.com/2016/06/new-research-suggest-andromeda-and.html

Our galaxy and Messier 31 might already be "touching"...

Exoplanet.eu's count as of yesterday: 4248.

So, that's seven new-to-humanity planets in two weeks. The process of automating discoveries really is picking up speed, isn't it?

This was an unlocked article at the Scientific American website, excerpted from the April 2020 issue. As a fan of astronomy and of the space opera branch of science fiction and fantasy, there was no way I wasn't going to distract myself from my troubles for at least a few minutes to look this one over.

I keep saying: the Star Trek people are going to need to update their maps too. This is one more part of why.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-map-of-the-milky-way/

Do I understand the information correctly, that this provides additional data on that particular region of the Orion Arm?

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/07/astronomers-discover-huge-gaseous-wave-holding-milky-ways-newest-stars

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-milky-reveals-giant-stellar-nurseries.html

https://twitter.com/galaxy_map/status/1214924177326661632