True Mapping of Near Stars

[karakris]

I do not know if U S gives this information - or if anyone else can work this out.

I have found Info. in Wiki on the 100 Nearest Stars to Sol - BUT.
As per usual in Astronomy - no one is interested in their TRUE POSITIONS in this Galaxy - but only Where You Can See Them in the Night Sky. DAMN !!

This means that - as the North-South Axis of Earth and the general Ecliptic of Sol is actally at nearly 90 degrees to its place in either the Spiral Arm of the Galaxy or the local part of the Disk of the Galaxy itself.
That is - this direction is at nearly 90 degrees to the line drawn from Sol to the Centre of the Galaxy.

I am TRYING to do a Map of the general area near to us in This Galaxy - the Stars in the Cygnus-Orion Minor Arm of this Galaxy.
I am doing this as a PLAN VIEW of the Galaxy - seeing as it is a Disk which mostly rotates around a common centre.

So - locating Stars by their Distance from Sol in Radial Directions at 90 degrees to this plane is useless, as is locating them by angular displacements ( in Hours ) around the Axis of Sol.

Question - Does U S give the actual Radial Dimensions ( preferably in Light Years ) from Galactic Centre for these Stars, and any other useful Location Dimensions ??
Can anyone find this Informatiuon elsewhere - cos I do not know where to look ??

[unl0cker]

Well, if moving objects in Universe Sandbox wasn't so let's say "buggy", but.. this is not a perfect word, so you either will need to crunch the data yourself to find the proper x/y/x, or use somebody else's data.

Herehttp://www.projectrho.com/public_html/starmaps/mapindex.php#winch you can find some of that data that will help to place the stars in their correct locations.



I hope this help. Cheers.

[vh]

this depends heavily on whether you are trying to map the nearest 100 stars or the stars in the orion-cygnus arm, as you mentioned both

if you are trying to map the 100 nearest stars:
we only know the distance of the galactic center to the sun with an accuracy of within about 1000 lightyears.
most of the nearest stars have a distance of just 300 light years from the sun, and the farthest is just 1600 lightyears
this makes it impossible to pinpoint any of the nearest stars with respect to the galactic center accurately

if you are trying to map the orion-cygnus arm:
you can find a bunch of clusters of the arm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion%E2%80%93Cygnus_Arm
and then find the list of stars inside those clusters
then maybe you can convert the coordinate systems to galactic
this may help
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/forms/calculator.html

it is important to note that galactic coordinates are actually not centered on our galaxy
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/236084main_MilkyWay-full-annotated.jpg

but if you are interested it should be simple to convert to a system using the galactic center as a reference