A series of jumps towards the "Fire Drake" nebula, taking in various O-class stars.

The highlight was a blue planetary nebula which wasn't registered on the star charts. Unfortunately on arrival it had already been tagged by Cmdr Hent, but it was still worth the 100LY detour as it also contained a Water World. "Blue-in-Blue". The system is "Agnairt TP-O e6-5885".

We are now just over 3.2kLY from Colonia.

UPDATE: Continued jumping towards the "Fire Drake" nebula and finally reached it primarily via Neutron and O-class stars. Inside the nebula I did a brief survey of stars around the central Neutron Star, but most are already tagged. Touched down on a volcanic world for some repairs but failed to find any volcanoes.

Later I continued a very brief star survey of the O-class and Neutron stars in and around the "Fire Drake" nebula, but failed to find any untagged ones.

I finally finished with my census of B-class stars in the "Demon Eater" nebula. It was by no means comprehensive, however does cover a large amount of the B-class stars in the nebula. At the end I also scanned 4 neutron stars at the top of the nebula, which had all been pre-discovered by Cmdr Tanager26.

No matter, I tagged a couple of O-class stars and found an undiscovered S-class star which had a binary pair of Earthlikes!

Further plotting towards "Colonia" showed a planetary nebula enroute which I proceeded to visit. Unfortunately it had already been visisted, by a Cmdr Hent. Still it boasts beautiful views, so much so that I misjudged a planetary approach and ended up further damaging my poor old "Alacritious" as it crashed out of supercruise.

Luckily the AFMU repaired most of the damage, but the vital systems are now:

• Hull: 40%
• Power-Plant: 92%
• AFMU: 92%

Too much more of this and I'll be breathing vacuum!

The planetary nebula, which is not yet marked on the star charts, is well worth a visit if you're in the vicinity.

• Phrae Flyou VD-B e749

Another 2-dozen or so B-class stars catalogued in the "Demon Eater" nebula.

While doing so, I wished for an upgrade to my galactic navigation computer - namely the ability to apply multiple filters to the view. It would be great to filter not only by star class, but also whether or not I had already visited a system previously. Well, can't expect upgrades out here..

More exploration in the "Demon Eater" nebula.

After a few more jumps I switched to cataloguing the B-class stars in the nebula, although many of which are already tagged by other Commanders.

The highlight of "tonight's" exploration was a ringed Gas Giant with water-based life. Itself not so uncommon, slightly more unusual was the fact that its two moons comprised of an extremely close-orbiting binary pair, and when I investigated closer, I discovered geysers on one of the moons.

• System: Phrae Flyou CB-M d8-151
• Planet: 1 B
• Coords: -34.0154 / 73.2218
• Description: Nice field of active geysers on an open plain, with a very close binary companion co-orbiting a ringed gas-giant in the "Demon Eater" nebula.

Some pictures

And the video log:

I ended up exploring the "Demon Eater" nebula, cataloging primarily G-class and B-class stars.

I struck lucky in a trinary system which contained an Ammonia World orbiting the distant third star, then the very next system contained 2 Water Worlds as well as another Ammonia World. Unfortunately that system was already tagged by Cmdr Obidiah Spoon.

One more jump and I found a beautiful ringed Water World, and spent some time exploring the rings before moving on.

Some views of today's travels.

A set of small jumps towards the B-class core of the "Demon Eater" nebula, albeit with no interesting discoveries.

Arriving at "Phrae Flyou OS-T e3-3785", which has already been tagged by Cmdr Minimumia, I mapped the rest of the system and decided to go geyser-hunting on the second planet, a 3.1g High-Metal-Content world.

I targeted a set of smaller craters inside a set of huge "ray" craters, dropped out of supercruise inside one crater, and cruised along towards the boundary between the craters keeping a sharp eye out for anything unusual. Half-way up the crater wall my scanners detected something. I gently nudged the ship into the centre of the signal source and gingerly touched down before jumping into the SRV for a reconnoitre.

An odd signal source was immediately apparent and I headed towards it. About 1.7km from my ship I found a burned-out SRV and a crashed skimmer, as well as several still-intact cargo canisters. I scooped a couple up, drove back to my ship, and decided to park my ship near the SRV wreckage for further inspection and salvage, but before I reached the site, a Viper MkIV popped over the hill! My scanners identified it as a "System Authority" vessel, but I sure didn't hang about - who knows what type of people are hanging out this far into the Black without opening a hailing channel first!

My heart is still thumping - quite unaccustomed to do a sudden U-turn, hit the boosts, and try to spool up the FSD (which was powered down), all the while avoiding crashing into the ground only 100m below me on a high-G world. Luckily for me the Viper didn't pursue, or he was caught equally off-guard, and I managed the jump into supercruise and legged it.

If anybody is keen to investigate further, the coordinates are: Latitude: -40.01577, Longitude: 175.24585.

A couple of Neutron-boosts, and I've finally reached the outskirts of my next waypoint - the Demon Eater nebula, a scant 4.3kLY from Colonia!

I found nothing extraordinary on these last few hops, however I already encountered tagged systems on the outskirts of this nebula - obviously it has been well-visited. My plan, as usual, is to find an Earthlike within this nebula, however going by past attempts, this venture is unlikely to succeed.

Onwards Ho!

The most remarkable system "tonight" was an O-class star with a Herbig Ae/Be companion around which were a total of 3 Water Worlds and 3 Gas Giants with water-based life.

Apart from that I lucked out around a G-class star with an Ammonia World.

The "Superbright" in the area was, however, already tagged, by _Cmdr PostM, although only the Black Hole primary. The Herbig Ae/Be orbiting it will have my name on it!

We are now "only" 4.7kLY from Colonia..

A few more Neutron Star jumps, and a couple of "Superbrights" (one of which was already tagged). Nothing really exceptional today. My final system was a Black-Hole system around which orbits a B-class along with a myriad of other bodies.

As I needed to repair my Frame Shift Drive after all the recent Neutron-Star boosting I touched down on one of the moons in the system, powered down the ship, and carried out some necessary maintenance. The "Alacritious" should be good to go for the final 5kLY to Jacques now! Iridium Wing has already been notified of my "imminent" arrival, and escort preparations are underway.

I spent most of this wake-time exploring likely stars in the vicinity of the "Peridot Pulsar" (my name), and struck lucky - apart from serveral Water-Worlds, I also scored a system containing an Earthlike, set beautifully with the green planetary nebula of the pulsar in the background.

Eventually though it was time to move on, and after a couple of Neutron Star boosts I struck a different kind of gold - an untagged MS-star (my first ever). It is huge, and has a landable planet 100kLS from it, which offers stunning views of the star.

Some views of today's travels.