Re: BSG+ Centauri A, B, C and Cally (was Re: Anyone else notice...)

"Brad Templeton" <btm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:S8WdncN_QN3EkJHVnZ2dnUVZ_r-vnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In article <672a7rF2mvf1dU1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> KalElFan <kalelfan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>>"Brad Templeton" <btm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>news:9fSdndqrdNFyX5bVnZ2dnUVZ_jydnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Not an assumption...
>
> I find anything else, like the idea she did all this on her own with
> her own mystical powers and all the other parties were figments
> of her imagination pretty unlikely.

You've admitted it's an assumption because you can't rule out the
"unlikely" scenarios.

> In fact, since she photographed Taurus, that means she
> photographed the Pleiades... If they spot those in the photo...
> If she had a good enough camera...
>
> If she happened to catch some of the really distant items...

If, if, if... again, there's nothing to nitpicks like this.  You're
making it all up.

> Quite possibly, but as far as I know it doesn't "flash" in the
> context of visible light on a 10 minute visit to the system.

The Chandra page said it was virtually continuous, so it might
have taken her 10 seconds to see flashes.  She was also gone
for two months Galactica time.

>>No, the sky (constellations, zodiac) can look very different
>>from different perspectives.  For example we see Centauri
>
> Of course, that's what computers are for.

You're just not realizing the magnitude (pun intended) of the
calculations here, even assuming they had the hardware and
software to make it feasible.  It involves 200 million stars,
from 200 million different perspectives, without any specific
reference objects that would make it easy.  Just points of
lights in the sky, with even those patterns suspect if some of
the objects are local (e.g., planets) or extra-galactic.  What
they have is the ability to confirm it's Earth sky when they get
there, not the ability to find it that way.

> If you get some distinctive objects, such as Pleiades, m8,
> any globular clusters, galaxies like m31... If Starbuck had...

If, if, and yet more if.

> With her ****d eye in outer space, she would spot M31...

> If she thought to do the galactic plane...

And maybe she did but the force(s) behind her trip didn't allow
her to bring that information back.  You should be stepping
back and realizing that ifs and maybes don't work if you
want any particular nitpick to stick.

> If she shot Orion...

One interesting post said that Orion was visible in one of the
Cally scenes.  Absent a coincidence, that does peg them at
about 100-200 light years from Earth, at worst.  The reason is
that the brightest stars in Orion range from 240 to 1300 light
years from Earth.  The ONLY way Orion could look the way
it does from Earth, to the Galactica fleet where they are now,
is if they're well under 240 light years from Earth AND on a
direct axis between Orion (as it's seen) and Earth.

But Orion is not part of the zodiac and so they don't know
it's visible from Earth.  Starbuck also wouldn't have seen it
if the season and her perspective was wrong (the Sun could
have been blocking it).

> she did shoot the zodiac, and that means Antares...

The data they have is not that it's Antares or whatever they
call the star.  It's just a point of light that could be 10 or 100
or 1000 light years from Earth.

> But I think that M45 would be the big winner.

Shoulda coulda woulda, if maybe only.