A thought on how the navigation computer works.

[Tawny]

Okay, so already we know that the seeder ships send star maps and data back to the Destiny. We can also assume that the seeder ships are quite along way ahead of Destiny. But I was wondering; would planetary drift and the natural orbit of galaxies around their center not affect the readings?
Would Destiny not have to be capable of calculating the drift and movement of every single star and planet on charts for its maps to still be accurate? If this is the case, the ship must have insane amounts of processing power and memory, because that is one hell of alot of information, especially considering how many galaxies the ship must have already travelled through.
And afterwards, would it continue to update charts for galaxies it had long passed through, as I'd imagine the Ancients would probably value as much accuracy as possible.
Please, correct any mistakes I might have made. Also, criticisms or ideas would be great

[Mike.]

Stargates need to keep track of every single atom in your body and do so without any problems. These are the Ancients after all. I doubt they have any issues with processing power considering all their other achievements. Even Destiny which is significantly older that most of their known tech still has great shields, decent weapons, innovative powersource and storage, all of which require very advanced technology.

Yeah, I imagine that its star charts are continuously updated, both by using live data from its sensors and from the seeder ships - and also by computing the new locations, compensating for all the little changes that occur over time.

[Puddle-Jumper]

Well the destiny may only be a year or two behind the seeder ships (Stellar drift would be near nominal in that short period of time), or the seeder ships may have the built in capacity to adjust for it or they send enough data to the destiny so that it can adjust for it.

These are the ancients... they can fly into a sun so their computers must have unreal processing power.. like they at the very least have the capacity to run windows 7 x64 without trouble

[Quadhelix]

Well the destiny may only be a year or two behind the seeder ships (Stellar drift would be near nominal in that short period of time), or the seeder ships may have the built in capacity to adjust for it or they send enough data to the destiny so that it can adjust for it.

The first seems like the most probable explanation.

I mean, the Earth 'Gate went 5,000+ years without compensating for stellar drift, and it could still dial Abydos without much trouble.

[thekillman]

it's possible destiny also gets the data to calculate stellar drift

[garhkal]

OR each gate is linked to 2-3 others within range and one of those is linked to 2-3 others and so on, so it would take a while but they can do correlative updates..

[Mike.]

OR each gate is linked to 2-3 others within range and one of those is linked to 2-3 others and so on, so it would take a while but they can do correlative updates..

Actually we don't know that. The writers haven't told us if the SGU gate's limited range was because of the lack of this specific feature or some other reason (power requirements, something else).

[escyos]

im still wondering how you can find your position in space, sure you can locate stars but if you ended up on the other side of the galaxy, how could you fin those star patterns again?

[Steelbox]

Actually we don't know that. The writers haven't told us if the SGU gate's limited range was because of the lack of this specific feature or some other reason (power requirements, something else).

Actually they have, its about power requirements. Don't ask the exact place but i am completely sure Mallozzi said it on his blog.

it's possible destiny also gets the data to calculate stellar drift

This would be the most logical and easy way to do it.