Milky Way Galaxy

[Greason Wolfe]

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I wonder how much data on the galaxy's stars we even have. I am guessing that we tried to pinpoint every star within X light years; would I know where the data is? No. Then try to process it... nah. Too much hassle for no real benefit! I'd much rather stick to large-scale interstellar features and famous / prominent stars etc.

As aside; one fringe benefit of researching for such projects is that you learn a lot. For example, I read that the thickness of the Milky Way is about 1000light years where we are. So this actually sets an upper limit on our z-Axis, and is quite relevant for a setting of galactic scale: You can't expand "up" and "down" indefinitely.

Well, with that 1000 ly limit, you might take a look at NBOS. I don't remember if it is available for free or not, but they have a zip file of Kepner Data sets (in .csv format), one of which lists stars up to 1000 ly away. And, as I mentioned before, there is always the ISDB (I linked to it in a previous post) that has some really good information on "star systems" though I don't know if that data extends to the 1000 ly mark. Still might be worth a look though, especially for the other information available from the site.

GW

Edit : Ah yes, the data sets are still available if you go to Resources (from the home page) and then select the Astrosynthesis category/group. The data sets are located on the second page and are a 3.28 meg download. You should be able to import this data into a spreadsheat (based on coma separations) and then sort as needed based on a number of categories. Could save you a lot of time in all of this. Direct Link : http://www.nbos.com/nox/index.php?action=1001&id=4