On 16 Apr 2014 at 16:26, Asher Royce Yaffee wrote:

>
>  I'm thinking to write up a subsector that has a nebula filling one
> corner. And in that nebula will be a star system with a black hole.
> Any thoughts on how this would look to the player characters?
>  In the rest of the subsector, would the nebula fill up a big chunk
> of the night sky, and be like in the astronomy photos?

Nope. Those photos are *greatly* enhanced. To the naked eye thetre's
a dim glow. Like the aurora, only fainter.

Not going to fill the sky either. If it's young, it won't cover much
of the sky unless you are less than a parsec away.

If it's old, it'll be too thin.

> The creation of a black hole is, I presume, an explosive process.
> So, would there be any planets left in a star system that has a
> black hole? Or would any planets have been blown to dust in the
> death of the old star?

It requires a supernova. That pretty much eliminates most planets.
Some gas giants many have remnants that are *very* small rocky
worlds.

>  How close could the player characters' lab ship get to a black
> hole? If they flew a probe at the black hole, would the probe be
> destroyed by radiation first, or would tidal forces rip the probe
> apart first? What cool effects could I describe to the players, or
> arrange for them to discover, at a black hole?

Depend. If it's got an accretion disk, the radiation will be bad in
several directions. And the material ogff the disk (and of the polar
jets) is even more dangerous than the radiation.

If it doesn't have a disk, the tidal forces will rip thoings apart
when they get too close.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com