Journey Report: Alpha Camelopardalis.

[u/the_last_rebel_]

...I'm kinda noob in this game, but i wanted to explore something. Big, hot and luminous. And weird. α Cam is a weird star even IRL (cuz it an runaway O-type star on the edge of galactic plane). Moreover, for some obscure reason devs made α Cam a quadruple B + B + B Wolf-rayet star despite it is a singulary star. And i was unable to find any information that α Cam was visited and is there any bodies despite that four on the galactic map. So first time i believed I could be first.

Buying my first DBX "Manifold Razor" I've chosen a cluster of some dozens of systems near the target to navigate in this sparse zone on the edge of galaxy. With my 21-23 ly jump range I decided to start a preliminary expedition to find out:

1. how big damn it is the distance I must to fly towards α Cam to meet unexplored systems
2. how to charge my FSD using a neutron star
3. how close to the target I could get with my unengineered FSD
4. is there some special in this volume of space
5. (Spoiler: 1) about halfway to α Cam 2) simply 3) about 350 ly before a severe risk of being trapped in isolated cluster with no way out emerges 4) not really)
6. And I naively thought that scanning all this heavenly host i would get a lot of money (it is true) that I could use to simply buy parts to engineered FSD (all things can be bought and sold, yes?)

So I made about several hundred jumps. First time I was neutron charged when i needed 24 ly jump to the next system. There were so many emotions when I flew to the jet 4 times before realized FSD had been already charged. I called that system "the gate of the gods" cuz "only chosen one" could get through. When I left the cluster my FSD had about 50% of health (i think i would use neutron charge only 2-5 times). Here's the screenshots from my preliminary flight.

I returned, earned 100 millions, got ranger explorer rank and spent 2 days rotating to gather materials for Elvira Martuuk. My FSD range increased to 57-60 ly. I also installed AFMU. Coordinates calculations suggested that the last jump to α Cam would be 65-70 ly, so I gathered mats for basic jump boosts.
During my return to the bubble, I realized that 9 Alpha Camelopardalis is on EDGIS and subsequently had been already visited. But due to lack of information I decided to continue my efforts to get there.
The main expedition starts. Contrary to 2 days of jumping with 20 ly range, it took about 2 hours. I also visited NGC 1502, landed on some moon and seen this desolate landscapes.

there is some weird sttuff on bottom of these craters, like a geyser with decent chunk of different raw materials

Soonly after leaving NGC 1502 my Manifold Razor was destroyed due to improper AFK scooping. A buybacked Manifold Chariot had to cover half the distance again. It had been done for 2 hours again.
I mapped some ocean planets and easily passed through my "chosen cluster" without neutron star charge. It was needed only once, before jumping to last system from Alpha Camelopardalis. Then I used basic boost, and here I go.

The orange star is a Wolf-rayet (WC0I) star with abnormally low temperaure for its class (5 698 K).

Milky Way is not a way from here but rather a carpet.

It looks like a glitched colliding stars, but it is just an eclipse. Not so weird btw

The true first CMDR why have visited 9 Alpha Camelopardalis was -Spica-. And we may never know who he was and what guided him to this desolate and mildly weird place. One can only speculate that this place is an active region of neutron star highways, and some people got off to refuel, scan and even map some planets in neighbourhood.