Traveller: The New EraTraveller_TNE Yahoo Groups Archive, 2005–2020

Re: [Traveller_TNE] Astronomical Errors

Posted by DED ·

Part of thread: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Astronomical Errors · 1 reply ↳ Re: [Traveller_TNE] Astronomical Errors — Peter Gray
I was on the TML back when the subject came up (once) and I recall that your observations listed here were mentioned then too. It was actually something that everyone agreed was true but no one really seemed to mind. A few people were interested in making corrections and started a project (or two or three) to do just that. I'm not sure what success they had, though with 11,000 worlds to worry about the odds are against them, especially since systems are randomly generated. In essence, the real world vs Traveller star locations was one of those rare situations that Traveller players are ok with.
 
Maybe if Traveller started now instead of the late 70's more of an effort would be made to make Traveller star systems mirror reality. The Internet has made so much information readily available to the average joe (and jane) that it would be easier to plot systems. Of course, there's the whole 2D map vs 3D reality to contend with. ;)
 
\_/
DED
 
----- Original Message -----
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To: ;
Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2005 10:10 PM
Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Astronomical Errors

I am not a member of the original TML, nor was I online during the "good old days" of the mid 90s, so I don't know if this topic has been beaten to death or not. But I've been intrigued by the corrective work that was done for Alpha Crucis/Alpha Leonis, and I was doing a little research on RL bright star positions relative to Canonical Traveller maps, more out of curiosity than any practical application.

All I can say is I'm rather appalled at how incredibly inaccurate Trav maps are.

I've surveyed all of the significant bright stars marked on the Solomani Rim map (in this case the "corrected" map from Harold Hale's old website), and the positions of systems like Canopus and Spica, and compared them to stars charted in an actual star atlas with the Galactic Equator marked, and it appears that nearly ninety percent of them are out of their proper angular positions, and a sizeable minority of those have incorrect distances. I especially appreciate the fact that the RL Deneb would be located at a point 17 sectors spinward of Theta Borealis. Or that the RL Canopus is actually located to trailing in Hiver space, and is nowhere near Taurus. 

I'm guessing that the persons involved with the original Traveller cartography were basing their stellar positions by using the raw Right Ascension and Declination data from an old star catalog.

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