I need a 3D map of the universe out to 400 ly...suggestions?

[rrw4rusty]

Hello,

I'm a sci-fi author and need to plot a course with distances and galaxy (cluster and super cluster) stop overs between the Coma Wall, Earth and the Great Attractor. I've looked at a few online 3D universe maps and 2D maps but have not found anything ideal. Any suggestions?

Thanks so much for any help you can offer!
Rusty Williamson
www.rustywilliamson.com
rusty@rustywilliamson.com

[Sensei]

I need a 3D map of the universe out to 400 ly...suggestions?

Title of thread contradicts the main post..

 

400 ly = 122.7 parsecs. It's neighborhood. Milky Way galaxy.

 

Here is 3D map of stars generated by my application.

Sphere in the center (there is Sun, and Earth) has radius 122.7 pc.

 

30k-40k stars in this range in above screen-shot.

Edited October 31, 2016 by Sensei

[Strange]

I haven't really looked at it, but this might do: http://www.amnh.org/our-research/hayden-planetarium/digital-universe

[rrw4rusty]

Thanks for the replies! Work on book sidelined by home remodeling... I'll check all this out in hopefully a few days...sorry.

 

Sensei--how do I contradict? You seem to have an amazing application...but I need something I can play with. Forget map showing Great Attractor...I forgot we can't see in that direction (unless I'm behind the times).

 

Thanks,

Rusty

 

Oh...I meant 400 million lg.

Edited November 3, 2016 by rrw4rusty

[Sensei]

but I need something I can play with.

 

In what sense "play with"? In Milky Way there is more than 100-400 bln stars. You can't even load it to computer memory at once..

If one star has properties x,y,z and brightness, every 32 bit float (pretty inaccurate), it's 128 bits per star = 16 bytes per star = 1.6e+12 bytes = 1490 GB needed.

If you have 8 GB memory in computer it's ~190 times less than needed.

 

Google for "database of galaxies", there will be some on-line db of galaxies.

You can write PHP/Python script trying to extract data from them,

one entry for each galaxy. Store in f.e. CSV (or multiple files) or MySQL database on your computer.

Then you will be able to generate whatever you need in C/C++ code.