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

>Curiously -- and it inspires some confidence in BSG's writers and science
>advisors -- Orion is an exceptional case.  It's one of the brightest and
>most recognizable of all the constellations.  Yet among the 7 key
brightest
>stars in it, the closest is 240 light years away from Earth.  The others
are
>430, 720, 800, 800, 900, and 1,300 light years away from Earth.
>
>Let's say you drew an axis from Earth to the middle star in Orion's Belt,
>that star being Alnilam, the one that's the farthest 1,300 light years
away.
>Now imagine us travelling toward it, and stopping in say 750 light years.
>We still see Alnilam, much brighter now because it's only 550 light years
>away. But the constellation Orion, as we called it, doesn't exist.  Its
>stars are all over the place now, including the other two belt stars.  To
>see the stars that were 240, 430 and 720 light years away from Earth,
>you have to turn your ****p around, or if you settled on a habitable
planet
>wait for the opposite season or travel to a different hemisphere.


You can watch this for yourself.  Download the free program "celestia"
which will let you zoom through the galaxy at warp speed, watching the
stars change position as you move from star to star.  UI isn't the best
but it's fun.

Asking "What does the sky look like from star X" is something modern
graphics processor chips can calculate in milliseconds, so they can
actually animate the fly-throughs.


Celestia runs on all major platforms and should be in your linux
package manager:

    http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
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