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

"Brad Templeton" <btm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:yqOdne0hP-BYXpHVnZ2dnUVZ_oDinZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Again, the point is that Alpha Centauri is a very sucky
> signpost to Earth.

Perhaps if you stop thinking of it as Alpha Centauri and
instead think of it as Starbuck's triple star system that she
knows is right next to the system Earth is in.  That's the info
that Starbuck has. Instead of looking at every common star
or binary star, she's looking for that triple star.  She could
have seen the binary from thousands of light years away,
and she can detect the third "fla****ng" star from the few
hundred light years away that she probably is.

> If you can see Alpha Centauri, you can see the Zodiac...

No, you keep using Zodiac as if it's some constant feature
in the galaxy.  It's not even constant from star system to star
system.

Once Starbuck finds a triple star system, she could try to
plot out what the zodiac looks like from it, and see if some
features are similar to what she knows Earth's zodiac looks
like.  But of course by the time she does all that she can just
jump to the triple star system and see for herself, and then
jump to the closest system and see Saturn and the Earth and
Earth's Zodiac.  It's also much more conducive to television
storytelling.

> We have seen this otherwise very dim companion --
> absolute magnitude of 15.5... From any serious distance
> finding a star with an absolute magnitude of 15.5 takes
> some serious work.

Which in this case makes the story even more plausible --
Starbuck is having trouble finding it.  The binary is easy to
spot from where they are (judging by the Orion sighting).
The third star is tougher, but using the X-ray spectrum or
other techniques might help.

Polaris, 420 light years from us, is a triple star.  Galactica's
technology (or the Demetrius), now well less than 240 light
years from Earth based on the Orion sighting, would be
able to identify the triple star we know as Alpha Centauri.
But it might take several more episodes. :-)