It was only 8 jumps to BD+10 1848, a star system at the centre of the Seagull Nebula, from Sagan Research Centre.

I passed through an F class system with an ammonia world. The game froze while attempting to open the system map so I had to reload the game. Some of the planets orbiting star C, a red dwarf had bio signs, I was divided over visiting them as as they were alll over 100kLs away. Upon checking the codex I determined that they could be bark mounds, bioluminescent anemones or crystalline shards. I would be fine traveling the distance for either of the latter but traveling that far for bark mounds would be a great waste. Upon consultation with the EDSM codex I discovered them to be bark mounds.

I didn't find anything interesting until I reached BD+10 1848. There I found 3 class IV gas giants, 2 class V gas giants, a class III gas giant, a brown dwarf, a molten HMCW over 4kLs out, a landable HMCW and a landable rocky moon.

I took a good look and then continued on towards Hell Port. Hell Port was a quite a bit away from the main star. I got a nice view of the nebula as well as Hell Port's host planet and star while there. Hell Port is controlled by the Black Rock Military, an anarchy faction. Despite only having a short trip between Thor's Helmet and Seagull, I still made over 2 million in cartographics. While here I upgraded my 4E power distributer to a 4D.

Seagull Nebula
Colour: 5/10, colours look nice in some situations but I prefer other colours.
Prominence: 9/10
Accessibility: 5/5
Station bonus: 3/3
Interesting phenomenon: 0/5
Total: 22/33

After a few jumps, I changed the route slightly to go to ALS 299, a B class star in Thor's Helmet. From there I would procede to the Sagan Research Centre in an adjacent system.

Soon I was down to 20 jumps to ALS 299.

I encountered a close (approx 8Ls) class M binary pair. Also in the system was an L class which held all 5 planets and one moon.

I entered a class F system only to be disappointed as the only other body there was a very far away M class dwarf.
From there it was 10 jumps to ALS 299 and yet Thor's Helmet was still only a blue smudge around ALS 299 which was a very prominent star.

The very next system was also F class and actually had some planets, but nothing too interesting.

Only 2 jumps later I was entering another F class system. This system was quite interesting, being a trinary system with two close K class stars (only about 15Ls for B and just over 210Ls for C, both close for this type of star). It also had multiple Y class brown dwarves, a class IV gas giant, two ringed HMCWs, several MRBs, multiple landable rocky moons, a sheperd moon, and a small water giant/large ice world binary pair that were roughly the same size. I took a closer look at the class IV gas giant before leaving. System is Oochonz CC-B d1-11. I reached the giant and flew low over its large ring, it had only 1 very large metallic ring, I scanned it and found several platinum hotspots, this would probably be a good ring for mining if there was any extraction economies or fleet carriers nearby to sell at. I flew through the ring to line up the next target and was soon on my way.

Several jumps later I entered a G class system. I found nothing of interest and jumped into Thor's Helmet Sector.

I entered my first T Tauri of Sanguineous Rim and got a good look at Thor's Helmet with ALS 299 shining bright at its core. I also got my first look at the far off Jellyfish Nebula.

In ALS 299, I found a large amount of brown dwarves, a ref dwarf and several MRB moons. One of the brown dwarves was orbiting the red dwarf but other than that there wasn't much interesting going on here but it did look nice. The view of the nebula isn't much different from the Witches Head or Iris Nebulae as it is the same type of nebula

In a nearby T Tauri system, the Sagan Research Centre, an asteroid base controlled by Thor Biometrics, orbited a small gas giant with ammonia life. I got a nice view of the nebula from here. A type 3 heavy got stuck in the mail slot of the base so I had to temporarily take over from autodock to manoeuvre around. Evidently the pilot must be quite inexperienced with docking after being in the black for so long, and left their docking computer to save on weight.

I sold over 9 million in cartographics and got a first to discover bonus for the Oochonz JG-W B21-0 system. I also gained 52,500 from codex discoveries. If I had've realised at the time that I was first to discover that system I would have scanned the whole system but there's no use worryingly about it now, should be plenty more undiscovered systems on the route.

Thor's Helmet Nebula
Colour: 6/10
Prominence: 3/10
Accessibility: 5/5
Station bonus: 3/3
Interesting phenomenon: 0/5
Total: 17/33
This rating is in accordance with the new rating system.

After an extended break I continue on the Crab Expedition.
With 18 jumps left to my first waypoint of Tau Canis Majoris, I enter Sanguineous Rim.

Soon after entering the Rim, I stop to FSS scan and hopefully pick up some new codex entries. After picking up some icy/rocky ice planets I enter my first G class system in the Rim to pick up the entries for G class star, terraformable water world and several HMCW entries.

I entered another M class star system and was greeted by the red dwarf flanked by two brown dwarves. I was directly in between A and B (class T), C (class L) was orbiting a small bit away from the main star. There was also D (class L) and E (class T), both much further away.
B was about 5Ls away from A, C was about 23Ls, D was 879Ls away and E was extremely remote at nearly 18,500Ls away. System is Oochoxt SI-J b42-0.

9 jumps left to Tau Canis Majoris.

In one type G system, I found a ringed rocky ice world with a gravity of only 0.87Gs, I decided to investigate further.
I found no geo or bio signs when I mapped the planet so I landed on a the rim of a large crater to take a look at the rings and have a quick drive around.

I was soon in Tau Canis Majoris, an O class supergiant system that reportedly contained prasinum bioluminescent anemones. The system contained 4 class M stars and a class F star. Every star had its own planet, only two were landable; a metal rich body 3.68Gs of gravity and two bio signs and ringed metal rich body with 1.41Gs and 5 bio signs.
I went for the outermost planet because it promised spectacular sights with an F class parent star and rings, it also had the lighter gravity by far which should nake landing easier and with 5 bio signs it would provide more potential landing sites.
Landing was quite easy, although the site was on the night side of the planet, the first rays of dawn could be seen on the horizon. The bioluminescent anemones also provided some of their own light which wouldn't have been able to shine through on a brighter site. The O type main star could also be seen and the rings provided a bright band in the sky.
The anemones were truly amazing looking, I got some great pictures near them. This must be one of my favourite surface sites, and was certainly my favourite bio site so far as the bark mounds are quite mediocre and while the brain trees looked quite nice they didn't compare to the lightshow provided by the mass of anemones here.

While still on the surface I plotted a route to an inhabited system in the Thor's Helmet Nebula. It was approx 960Ly and 28 jumps away.

I have now obtained the Guardian FSD booster and upgraded my jump range to 40.09Ly (fully laden with fuel).

I have visited several stars in the Orion Constellation and made a visit to the Eskimo Nebula (AKA NGC 2392).

Its a planetary nebula with a O class central star named GCRV 4981.

Eskimo Nebula
Colour: 10/10, I love the orange/cyan combo and the pattern it makes
Prominence: 1/10, only visible right before you jump in
Accessibility: 5
Interesting phenomenon bonus: 5, for the black hole
Total: 21/30

This is the new nebula rating system, balanced out as the last wasn't very good.

While I was out here I spontaneously decided to head towards Thor's Helmet Nebula in Sanguineous Rim. I plotted a route of 88 jumps. After Thor's Helmet I plan on going on towards the Seagull, Jellyfish and Monkey's Head Nebulae then onto the Crab Pulsar and Nebula as my final destination. This route will bring me right across Sanguineous Rim to the border of Kepler's Crest and Elysian Shore and to near the edge of the galaxy.

After checking the codex I re-routed to Tau Canis Majoris to investigate some prasinum bioluminescent anemones. I had also marked a system past the Seagull Nebula for some more anemones of a different variety, and a system between the previous one and the Rosette Nebula for some crystalline shards.

I left the route until the next day, this will henceforth be known as the Crab Expedition and it will hopefully cover some uncharted territory unlike my previous expeditions.

I arrived in Alaunus and scanned the system and found an unexpected generation ship here.

I visited one of the NSPs just over 5kLys out and found the Q09 type anomalies, this time without ramming them. I noticed that these ones stayed further apart, the others clustered together but these ones were out of visual range of each other.

Following my investigation of the anomalies I set out for Generation Ship Lycaon, a bit over 27kLy from my current position, over 30kLy from the main star.

I reached the Lycaon soon enough and after reading the recovered logs it's apparent that an alien microorganism from and an asteroid infected a member of a survey team, leading to a pandemic breaking out on board which killed everyone.

After this I will be heading towards a nearby white dwarf and Trappist-1, then on towards the pilots federation district where I will meet a friend of mine who is new to the game.

I arrived in HIP 15310 after deciding I had had enough of the thargoid structures near the Pleiades.

I immediately noted the small number of planets and the lack of any population, despite it being a federation system.

Scanning the system revealed the two Notable Stellar Phenomena.
I checked the map and found X-2487 and X-2488, binary ammonia worlds. I also found HIP 15310 2, a HMCW that was almost 24kLs out.

I mapped the two ammonia worlds and then headed straight for the anomalies.
At the first NSP I found just rubeum metallic crystals so I went towards the next one.
I was disappointed yet again when the second NSP appeared to be a proto lagrange cloud with purpureum metallic crystals however when I went to identify a cluster of glitchy looking markers on my radar near the edge of the cloud a cluster of lights suddenly appeared and hit me with a shield breach attack. I slowed down and scanned them to identify them as Q04 type anomalies. I investigated several other clusters of anomalies here then returned to the previous NSP to find the anomalies there, now that I know what to look for.
I was once again going too fast and rammed the anomaly, this time it was a Q08 type anomaly and it unleashed some sort of lightning that disrupted the HUD.

Following this I plotted a course for Laksmi, home base of Lyra squadron.

Today I visited the Survey Vessel Pandora in HIP 21478. It appears that a similar thing occured here as what occured on Survey Vessel Victoria Song except that the crew of Pandora abandoned ship.

I proceeded to the next system I had marked, Col 285 Sector CV-Y d57. There I attempted to climb another mountain on moon AB1c. I got a nice view of planet AB1 eclipsing the main star. I started from the lowlands at 18.4510° 71.1862° at an altitude of 0km. I then attempted to climb a peak at 19.2667° 70.6289° at an elevation of 7.8km.

There was multiple adders flying near landing site for whatever reason.
After 22 minutes of climbing I tumbled back down very far and aborted the ascent due to hull damage. I stopped at a relatively flat shelf and attempted to recall my ship but it couldn't land, I continued on downward. At a time of 41 minutes I made it to a place for my ship to land.
Upon taking off I noticed a few ships still flying around in the distance, I don't know who they are or why they were here but maybe they were related to a mission given out by a nearby starport.

In this session I made it to the top of the mountain. In all it took me probably close to 3 hours over the course of two sessions to make if to the top.
Nothing too notable occured but it was enjoyable to get out of my ship and drive around, something I had neglected to do on the final few segments of the nebula tour.
It reminded me of my hobby of real life mountain climbing, sometimes you get too absorbed in reaching the high points of your route that you forget to look around and enjoy the small things.

After reaching the top of what I call Black Spire (due to the black rocks of the mountains and it's very steep sides) I attempted to recall my ship but it couldn't land so it just bonked into the side of the peak. I descended back down the cliffsides and gullies that were previously too steep to ascend and made it back down in about 15 minutes to the area I call Rust Valley (due to the reddish dirt and black rock making this area look rusty) where I started this journey.
I flew back up along the route in my ship and then checked the elevation of Black Spire by flying straight out over the flat low lands and reading the elevation. In total the peak was 10.6km above the surrounding orange lowlands, higher than Everest here on earth (over 8km tall) but not quite as tall as Olympus Mons (almost 22km tall) on Mars. Still, despite it not being as large as Olympus Mons I was still high enough above the surface to see the curvature of the moon I was on.

I had just left the system when I decided to return and get the coordinates for future reference:
Black Spire: -63.6722° 59.6429°
Rust Valley: -63.4677° 38.3968°
The Outcast: -63.0049° 33.6488°

The Outcast is a small peak with an elevation of 3.3km that is separated from the main mountain range, the slopes are more gradual and thus more suited to those seeking an easier, quicker or more relaxed climb.
Rust Valley is at an elevation of 3.4km, making the total ascent of Black Spire only 7.2km.
An easy way to find this mountain range is by going to the crash site and heading towards the smaller mountain range, in fact I may one day return here and climb some of the other peaks in the larger range as it covers a large area of the planet's surface so is bound to have something interesting.

I continued on towards HIP 19026 which I believe contains another surface site according to Canonn's data.

The thargoid signal was on a moon, B1c. It was over 30kLs out but it didn't take too long to get there.
I located the unknown structure scan and landed without incident. The interior of this structure was apparently collapsed. I scanned a thargoid uplink device here then left.

I visited another inactive thargoid site nearby then headed to 42 n Persei where I checked out the faction installations and riker class prison ship then docked.

While on my way back from the nebula tour I stopped by the Pleiades.

I stopped by Pleiades Sector AB-W b2-4 and stopped at a surface base there. I ventured out to a wrecked thargoid interceptor.

I checked the xeno section of the codex and found that Delphi had a lot of thargoid items to find.

In Delphi I visited a thargoid surface site there, this prompted me to investigate other known thargoid locations leading me to mark HIP 17125, HIP 19026 and Aries Dark Region DB-X d1-63.

In HIP 17125 I found the Survey Vessel Victoria Song. After scanning it I found several log entries, transcribed below:

Entry 1:
Some of the crew are not happy we're working for the Feds, but this deal is too good to pass up.
With all the expansion going on in this region we need to make sure we're in at the beginning to secure the contracts we need.
This survey mission is just that. A simple rock hop. Scanning for minerals.

Entry 2:
We arrived in orbit around planet A7 a day ago. It's been all hands on deck to make sure all the equipment is ready for launch down to the surface.
While the majority of our planet scans just showed the usual mineral data there is one area on this rock that is giving off some unusual readings.
If there's any profit to be made from this trip it's going to be found there.

Entry 3:
We've stumbled onto something big, I don't know what it is or who built it, but we've definitely hit the mother load.
Aries Dark Region DB-X d1-63 is gonna have our names on it.
First things first, I've got to make sure all this is by the numbers. I don't want this going south because we didn't fill in the correct paperwork.
I'm calling it in.

Entry 4:
Security vessel, please respond… Hold your fire! This is a registered survey mission. We have all the correct paperwork… Listen to me! You can't just arrest us… we havent done anything wrong, we have rights.
Repeat, we're an unarmed survey team on a registered mission.
We surrender! Please!

From the logs it appears the vessel was surveying planet A7 of Aries Dark Region DB-X d1-63 when they found the thargoid site there. After this federal security arrested them, the ship appears to be fully operational so my guess is that the original crew got arrested and the vessel was re-assigned to planet A3 of HIP 17125, a planet that has a moon containing another surface site.

Before I investigated the site I would investigate Pirx, a water planet with a ring system in a binary orbit with planet A3. It was interesting but nothing too special.

I went back to A3 after this and mapped the planet to reveal a crash site. I followed it down and lost the signal as I dropped from orbital cruise however the site was rather apparent once I had completed my glide. It was in a canyon near the base of a large mountain. I scanned the crashed thargoid scout and investigated it a bit. There was thargoid resin, bio matter and tech scattered across the site but I didn't pick it because it was corrosive.

After this I flew my ship over to the mountain but was unable to find somewhere to land near the top. After a long time searching I eventually found somewhere on the far slope of the highest peak. From here I set out in my SRV to attempt a summiting of the highest of the peaks.

From my base camp and a relatively flat area near the foot of the mountain I ascended 30-50° slopes and got (approximately) halfway. I passed a minor peak sticking out from the main peak that I had noted on my way to the base camp. Eventually I decided to leave this session here, around halfway up a mountain on HIP 17125 A3a.

This will be the last part in my tour of the nebulae near the bubble.

On the way back I docked in two outlying stations: California Gateway and New Beaumont Dock, controlled by Turner Research Group and Spinward Marches Hydroponics, both Alliance factions.

I set a course towards 39 Delta Persei, part of a group of blue-white stars and Mirphak, a white supergiant.

In 39 Delta Persei there was a type B giant star and a black hole. I decided not to investigate any further and instead move straight onto Mirphak.

In 2 jumps time I was in Mirphak. It was massive, there was a class IV gas giant there but not much else of interest.

I mapped a metal rich body and left this final session here, from here I will return to the bubble, obtain a guardian FSD booster, A rate my modules and figure out where to go next.