3 replies to this topic

[Time_Traveller]

I think by the 24th Century we'll have something like this on ships and will automatically change when stars explode etc: -

Edited by Time_Traveller, 28 April 2012 - 08:24 AM.

[Dead Redshirt]

Well, Stellar Cartography is more or less an advanced form of planetarium software. The problem with current planetarium software is that you have sets of static data for different sets of objects in the sky. You download the data and then the program shows you what that data represents. The problem is in how we collect that data, which is accumulated over years and years of observation from all over the world and even specially launched satellites such as the Hubble Space Telescope, so the data stream isn't so much a stream. So, I think for some of the advanced features of Stellar Cartography to show something like an exploding supernova in real-time, we'd have to have a fundamental shift in how we collect the data and the resolution of this data.

[Time_Traveller]

Ah so a major change in data collecting in space.

[Dead Redshirt]

Yeah, we'd have to have something similar to probes that listen and report back any changes, which in turn would be connected to an information network, so I think in some respects, Star Trek got part of it right. The problem then is that there are so many objects in the sky, not counting stars, that any information stream would create a bottleneck, and just how would you select where to look at? I think the idea of probes and relays is a good one. To solve the problem, one way to do it would be to only report back what changes, or what changes signficantly, similar in some way to how a webcam can detect movement and send a picture as a security system. There are already some telescopes that do that, so the idea isn't a stretch. They're largely automated and scan large chunks of the sky and then send back pictures of anything that changes, but we come back to the human element where astronomers look at these images and decide if they're significant changes or not, which sometimes results in major discoveries. Maybe these would be duties relegated to officers in Stellar Cartography? I dunno.

Previously, and it's still done this way to a large extent, some amateur astronomers, via a network of observers, donate their time and effort into logging specific objects and then report back to the International Astronomical Union. My Dad has done it in the past and helped confirm something and has in turn had an asteroid named after him for his work in the astronomy community. Ironically, it's people like him that end up discovering the most stuff because the professional astronomers with their big powerful scopes are too focused on certain areas, that they miss things like this. For example, it's the way Shoemaker-Levy 9 was discovered, and it was discovered by mistake and had caused quite a stir by colliding into Jupiter.