[TML] An odd Idea

[Michael Jenkins]

On 03/04/2008, Jerry W Barrington <jerry.barrington at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/2/08 11:22 PM, "shadow at shadowgard.com" <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
>
>  > On 2 Apr 2008 at 15:59, Bruce Johnson wrote:
>  >
>  >> In Traveller, if you're not privy to the nav system, or can see (and
>  >> chart) the sky AND know your orientation AND have access to a Nav
>  >> database (see the first part) when you jump, you could be *anywhere*
>  >> within jump range. You could be told it's a two,three jump trip, with
>  >> an unspecified jump number. Jump in a J6 crew transport, and three
>  >> jumps puts you within a HUGE volume of space.
>  >
>  > Seeing the sky doesn't help much unless there's a *very* distinctive
>  > star visible.
>  >
>  > Most bright stars are very close. And the ones that aren't are going
>  > to blend in.
>
> The sky at Alpha Centauri would like practically identical to here.  Except
>  Alpha would be gone, and a similar star would be on the opposite side of the
>  sky.  And it's called Alpha because it's the brightest in the Centaur, thus
>  fairly noticeable.
>
>  The close stars are particularly important, because they will move so much

Uh ... except the Centauri system has three stars in it, so that would
be very different from the view around Sol!     :)

Stars in the system are Alpha Centauri A and B (which I had thought
were called Alpha and Beta Centauri), and Proxima Centauri.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri

Summarising, Alpha Centauri A and B vary between 11.2 and 35.6 AU
apart, and Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf that orbits the other two
at about 13,000 AU. Proxima Centauri would likely be about 4.5
magnitude to a likely terrestrial planet of the other two.

There's a discussion in the article about the possibility of planets,
and the appearance of stars in the sky. Goes into some detail - the
biggest differences would be Sol (of course), and as Jerry indicated,
the close, bright stars of Sirius and Procyon (very different
position) and Altair (different position to a lesser extent).

-- 
Regards,
Michael Jenkins
--
You cannot deny the humanity of another human being
Without also denying humanity in yourself
--