Carbon Stars / Fuel Mishap

I am now picking my way slowly through a vast expanse of non sequence stars. I am seeing so many black holes and neutron stars on this leg of the journey that they are no longer as new and fresh as they used to be.

I have, however, gained a significantly increased respect for those neutron stars, I have lost three percent of my hull to them in the past seventy two hours alone! Each time it has been not due to landing in system too close, but accelerating prematurely before turning away. So commanders, get at least sixty degrees of turn in before hitting the throttle!

The real treat for me in this cluster is the much higher than average occurrence of S class Carbon stars. Those big beauties that are near end of life M class stars. Having never seen one before and certainly not dropped across one on my current journey the first was special.

The second was surprising, and special in it's own way. The reason for this was not so much the fact it was only 50Ly away from the first, but that I got myself in a bit of a pickle rushing over to see it. Rather than take my time and plan my route carefully I saw it was three jumps, and that there was also an M class star I could scoop from in system.

So I bounced over there. When I saw where that M class star was my first reaction was to open the galaxy map and see what else was nearby. Well done Commander Rikk, there were no nearby scoopable stars I could reach.

I had to scoop from this.

Yes, that is an M class star in the corona of a much bigger S class carbon.

Well I did it, and it was possible one of the most exciting things I have done this journey. So much so that after getting my first couple of tonnes, I kept going back in for a little more until I was fun. Some would say that was foolhardy... I wear the cowboy boots on this ship though :)

So I survived, and took no extra damage. After a few scans of planetary objects I had another look at the map and found yet another star showing as carbon - so off I went. This one has a nice ringed rock about 1000ls from the star which looked thoroughly pleasant.

Finally, taken from carbon star number 6 in this cluster, a quick shot out the cabin window. I'm still a good distance south of the galactic plane, as you can see from these shots!

My journey has slowed down significantly in this cluster as it is certainly the galactic melting pot I expected it to be. As I head upwards and towards the start of the Perseus arm I am preparing for the long loop back around to head home. Still a long way to go yet.

Rikk, signing out.