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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2026 Jan 19, 17:41 -0800
David Pike, you wrote:
"Therefore: Distance moved = 8.6tan3=0.45 light years"
Yes, that looks about right to me, too. I only got around to measuring it this afternoon. I used the Betelgeuse-Rigel x-coordinate separation as an angular scale (like your SHA suggestion). I averaged things a little differently since the image is not exactly "research quality", and I came up with 0.6 light-year. That's close enough to call it a match!
I will, however, call you out for your scandalous use of a "tangent" when a ratio will do. :) You calculated 8.6×tan(3°) when the simple ratio (deg / 57.3) = (size / distance) gets you there faster and trig-free! :)
And you worked out the travel time:
"time=10x0.45=4.5 years, which is a long time to go without a decent haircut."
Oh, you may have missed the starship orientation after we departed Wolf 359... There's a barber shop on Deck 4, Section 31. See photo.
Frank Reed
