Alright, made it back. Sold 13 mil of exploration data, I'm now at 63% for rank-up from Ranger. Also made sure I check in with Vigor before I sold it. Afterwards I did two deliveries from Cubeo to HIP 5623 to get the last Modular Terminals for Qwent. Made my PP low emission and my distributor engine focused. Now to find some unknown fragments for Palin. I heard rumors about a crashed Conda with UA's strewn around it. That'd be really nice.

Alright, I now got G4 DDs on my ship. 517 m/s boost speed. Fuuuck. I'm at 98% power usage with bare bones modules, I couldn't use G5 DDs with a 4A low emission PP anyway.

Wow I really did not give a shit yesterday...
The undiscovered neutron star is part of the neutron star halo. There's thousands of them here. Black holes too. I have never felt anything like the absolute terror when a black hole's gravity well tore apart my FSD's space bubble. The warping of light combined with their complete and utter blackness instill a primal fear in me I cannot explain. I've been to a few systems with black holes but I certainly don't see myself ever again going into a system with a black hole in it.

Already down to ~7 kly. Neutron star hopping is great.

Undiscovered Neutron star fuck yeah!

I'm 3.034 Ly out now so I should be able to make it today. Back home in Cubeo the PI is getting ready to elect a new High Overseer of the Administration to replace the incarcerated Jessee Ladd. The standing head Senator Aloturus Ottesius seems to be a competent man fit for the job, but that is merely my first impression from having met him. Data collection on water worlds is slowing down, I'm finding fewer this close to Colonia. I might make my rounds around the Eagle-Omega region to find some more. First thing I'll do after dropping off my cargo will be to tag some black hole though, Senator Sunless has given me a great area to find some undiscovered ones.

Dropped into a truly massive system.

I MADE IT! Finally! I dropped the Galactic Travel Guides off and sold all of my exploration data. I completely forgot that terraformable high metal worlds are a thing, made a lot more money than I though. One of the systems I discovered (STUELOU TY-Q d5-73) is a binary with 14 planets, 6 of which are teraformable high metal worlds and one teraformable high water world. I got almost 600k for it. My Katarina isn't exactly equipped for proper exploration, so I slapped a 4D shield, two 2H SRV hangars and a 6E AFMU on it after selling the cargo racks. Outfitting in Jaques is quite barebones. Senator Sunless stopped by, it was great to meet a fellow PI CMDR out here and to be finally able to put a face (well, ship) to the name.

I'm off to explore the black holes around BOEPH YJ-R E4-0 he mentioned and put my name on a few.

First flight to Colonia is hereby concluded.

Reached Skaudai CH-B D14-34 and touched down in Sacaqawea Spaceport, halfway to Colonia. I made 8,5 mil from the exploration data I had and was promoted from Pathfinder to Ranger. I'll reach Elite one day. Back on track to Colonia now, I'll try to limit the detours and keep the exploration to a minimum.

By now I can even see the milky way behind me, quite pretty. I've also learned a LOT about social conventions within the Prismatic Imperium and property laws in the Cubeo system. He also talked about the legal restrictions regular pilots are under, I had no idea. Goes to show you that I am not a trained pilot, CMDR Syntheri Coil really did me a great service by sponsoring me and getting me started as a pilot. I miss him.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST IT GOT BRIGHT FAST

Nothing's happening. Won't keep me from amending this log entry. 7.312 ly out.

I'm gonna look more closely for earthlikes and water worlds from here on. I've started writing down some details for them, so I can hopefully ID them more quickly in the future.

Was looking for a system I passed through for information on two water worlds in contained. I forgot I went back and did almost 10 jumps in the wrong direction. Balls.

Man I am really spending way too much time on this data collection.

I've found a ton of virgin water worlds and earth-likes in between the Omega and Eagle nebulae. The Eagle nebula itself is not very special, except for a cuboid shaped cluster of OBAF stars for which I absolutely cannot grasp a reason for existing. It's been smooth sailing otherwise.

I've got 14.565 ly ahead of me at the time of writing this, yet I feel like I've been travelling for ever. Seems like I underestimated this trip after all.

Water world with a water-rich atmosphere ready for terraforming.

Changed my course to Skaudai CH-B d14-34 so I can make a stop at Sacaqawea Space Port. Fixing my ship up never hurts and I really need to get my paintjob redone.

No idea what this star cluster is, but I'll be damned if I can't find out.

Shit is this just what it's like getting closer to the core?

Starting to understand space madness

Found a planet which looks like a big ball of magma which had rings, spent some time flying over its rings and even dipped into one. I never noticed how beautiful they can be.

The stars cluster is now above me and definitely not just part of a nebula (like Omega's), way ahead seems to return to a normal amount. It might really be just a local thing here. (I took a short nap and it really is gone now. Shame.)

On my way to Colonia for the first time. I felt bad about not taking any "Galactic Travel Guides" out there myself, so I refitted my Katarina for long distance cargo hauling, got loaded by CMDRs Ssyn, DarthSeaBass and UntamedZer0. Ssyn also brought me a whole ton of tea. I can't see myself finishing it (I don't even have a way to access my cargo hold from within my cockpit, probably for the better) so I might just end up selling it at Jacque's. Appreciate the gesture though.

I took my first detour to see the Lagoon Nebula, watching it grow before me was a truly humbling sight to behold.

From there I headed towards the Omega Nebula because of the star field behind it which eventually became visible upon dropping in to a system..

In hindsight I could've handled the whole thing better with some proper planning.

I'm now back on a straight route, hopefully I'll make it to Colonia by Wednesday. I'm scanning a bunch of virgin systems on the way, but I'm not really paying attention to my finds.

Found a virgin ammonia world and a virgin water world. Nice.