Before docking at Explorer's Anchorage:

EDSM exploration estimate: 1,297,610,105

Before docking at Sol:

EDSM exploration estimate: 306,439,659

Total exploration estimate: 1,604,049,764 cr.

With the LYR bonus, should come out to 4,812,149,292.

Current funds before beginning the LYR process:
7,097,752,592

Funds before selling the data, after completing Rank 5 in LYR:
6,999,516,016

Funds after selling all data at LYR stations:
12,786,788,395

Total exploration profits from the Perseus Reach Expedition:
5,787,272,379

Did another "exploration" for three nights, on which I found some nice undiscovered systems including a binary ELW.
Additional LYR-powered funds:
381,650,754

Final LYR-powered total:
6,168,923,133

The expedition has been completed. Total travel distance: 226,025 light years. I ended up coming back much faster than I originally planned, due to two things.

First, I had made an incredibly rare discovery, between Waypoints 9 and 10 in Newton's Vault region - a Glowing Green Giant! A class II giant, the only one currently known in the sector, and number 24 of all known GGGs.
Flyue Bloae QN-Y c2-0

I was closer to finishing the expedition, than rushing to the nearest station and then back out again to finish it; so I tore through the last four waypoints (did so in 4 days), and then tore straight back (mainly along the -2000 West longitude, as I still wanted to see if I could find more untouched systems along the way. Which I did, despite the route being along a popular corridor to Beagle Point.)

Despite the rush, I laid a memorial down atop the tallest peak on the farthest moon of the farthest giant, of the farthest star of Semotus Beacon.
Maggie Rose, I will deeply treasure the 15 years of love you gave me and my family. The pain of parting still stings, but it is really a small price to pay for a long life shared with you. I miss you terribly.

Second reason for my rushing back, is the Deep Space Support Array. I have been offered the opportunity to sign on as the Executive Officer aboard the DSSA Explorer's Bar 'n Grill which will be stationed out in the great beyond at Arm's End. I'll be building a "burner" mining ship to store aboard as well as take my beloved explorer ship Toward Eternity along for scouting and the return trip. Planning has already been underway for some time now, and the recruitment drive has turned up many brave and half-mad individuals.

This should be glorious. Departure is tentatively in mid-June.

Now begins my first-ever drive to the LYR bonus, and see if I can convert 1.6 billion in exploration data into 4.8 billion!

Once more into the black. Pulled over in Galileo station around the moon for a little photo op, before joining the launch party around old Earth.

Taking this plucky SK Dolphin Death and Gravity to the farthest system, Semotus Beacon. "Armed" with Repair and Fuel limpet controllers, I'm opting to be a more support-friendly participant of the expedition, and try to be a bit less dark-obsessed.

Pre-Expedition Distance Travelled: 1,106,285 LY

What began as just a boredom-inspired walkabout to seek out something to do, ended up being a tour of the far dark reaches of the Southern galaxy, specifically the Outer Arm Vacuus, taking photos to fulfill missing images for the Galactic Mapping Project.

As these things go, it becomes just a little farther to that next POI, and then the next...

And thus I ended up reaching for the absolute limit of the arm, Arm's End

Nice black skies out here.

Addendum: I departed Sol on the 22nd of December, and arrived here, over 64 thousand lightyears travelled, on the 30th of December.

Addendum 2: Exact numbers from the Fortnightly Report are as follows...

December 18th to December 31st - 64,719.55 LY
January 1st to January 14th - 46,662.34 LY

111,381.89 LY in a month.

Finally back in Daedalus station, around Mercury, in Sol. Acquired about 225 million credits (without bonuses) according to the EDSM estimator, since my less-than-direct path back from Explorer's Anchorage, sometimes following the sector borders.

Now let's see what the Arx module is giving me - I've seen some rumors and less than scientific testing about what activities' rates generate for this new currency, so I'm doing incremental actions and noting the change in balance.

Starting ARX balance: 1001

Advanced Maintenance repair of the ship integrity: 1,432,953 CR (plus 100 CR for the paint job refresh)
ARX earned: 8

New ARX balance: 1009

Redeeming Codex Discoveries (Stellar Unknown et al): 307,500 CR
ARX earned: 1

New ARX balance: 1010

Selling just one page of Exploration Data, with bonuses: 15,052,486 CR
ARX earned: 165!

New ARX balance: 1175

Sold two more pages of Exploration data: 21,320,319 + 36,266,430 CR,
for a total of 57,586,749 credits
ARX earned: 109, I maxed out my weekly ARX earnings already, so it cut off. I should've been more careful!

New ARX balance: 1284

EDIT: A couple days later, and the weekly counter has been reset. This time I'll sell each page in increments, and then when it's maxed out, I'll sell the rest.

Page of Exploration Data: 34,189,183 CR
ARX Earned: 289

Page of Exploration Data: 14,285,077 CR
ARX Earned: Maxed out already (would have been greater than 111)

So it looks like the average rate of ARX earned is somewhere between 118k to 91k per 1 point of ARX. So you'd only need at least 36-47 million credits' worth to max out your weekly ARX earning potential.

Sold the rest of my data (it would take weeks to milk the remainder with these puny caps), for a grand total of 270,795,920 credits earned in exploration, plus an additional 307,500 CR of codex scans.

Not a bad haul for a jog back from Explorer's Anchorage.

And with that, my part of Stellar Unknown expedition comes to a close as I cashed in 629,861,836 credits for my exploration. I chose to skip the last three yet-to-be-announced waypoints, partly because they were added in much later, and mostly because it was an exceedingly short distance between the last and the endpoint to cram them in there.

Needless to say, I am quite disappointed with the lackluster organization of the expedition, and my main takeaway is that if I am to go on another expedition, I will strongly request at least a wireframe of what the route will be. I honestly don't care for the "waypoints will be announced on a weekly basis" - it worked for Distant Worlds 2. Stellar Unknown has shown me that I was greatly spoiled for the gargantuan level of planning, organization and staffing behind Distant Worlds 2.

As for the actual route Stellar Unknown took, it was very pedestrian. Visiting nebulae, and kept to the known regions of the galaxy. I had hoped that they'd try to reach out into the lesser travelled regions, but they didn't. If anything they seemed more obsessed with organizing mass jumps every weekend than doing any proper exploration.

Saw the hated Dryman's Point sector again. Still infested with Peduncle trees.

Currently restocking and fixing the power plant at Explorer's Anchorage - shortly I'll start back out and head towards the bubble. I've been feeling a lot of dread as of late, and I may not be much longer for the stars above. All things fall to the dark in the end, anyways.

Second expedition, this time the Stellar Unknown heading out to the Eastern edge of the galaxy and back to the core. If I play my cards right, I can detour and seek out the Double Positive system along the way.

Landed at the second planet in the Waypoint 2 system of CD-39 6137, as known as the "Eight Burst Nebula" or the "Celestial Gem."

After I get some samples, I'm heading right back out and into the depths below.

I returned to my little distant edge system, Phrae Dryue UM-H d11-0 and mapped it fully, since the last time I was here, there were no DSS probe modules. Those black abyssal skies are just as welcoming as I remembered.

I still don't quite know why the friends I picked up at Semotus Beacon had left me without a word, but there was no knocking, no beckoning when I was in the dark here.

Oh well; I found new surface signals on two of the landable planets in this system, including nice campfires on D4, one of the twins. D1 is the closest to the blood-red fourth star, so I got in some nice photos of my beloved ship.

As of writing this, I'm already over 7,500 light-years from Sol again, heading towards the Double-Negative system I found on the edge. Did a brief stop at Farsight Expedition base and spent the night there. On my way out the slot, one of the ground crew, who remembered me from my last trip over a year ago, congratulated me on getting a Record.

What?

Somehow, either the message from the folks at EDSM got lost in the gulfs, or I didn't recognize the sender... But back in the Third of March, I had finally found a galactic record!

It's already since been beaten, but for a brief window that I totally didn't see on the leaderboards, my name was up there, for finding the lowest Earth-like world. This was during Distant Worlds 2, near the galactic center; I remember doing a number of deep dives then. Sluemoa XU-O e6-7 is pretty far down there in the dark under the Milky Way.

Well, that's one more goal completed. Ever onwards we go, Toward Eternity.

Starting balance before turning in my cartographic data accumulated over DW2, post-Explorer's Anchorage, to my return to Sol:
3,210,824,107 Cr

Final Balance, after selling the data:
5,273,920,707 Cr
A net gain of 2,063,096,600 Credits. There were an additional 1,335,000 credits from the codex discoveries (so many trees from the Black Forest) so it was a good return.

Things I've done since July 7th - Bought a Cutter, fitted it out for cargo runs. Bought a Krait Phantom, fitted it out for exploration & material/data gathering. Participated in the CG for expanding human presence in the Witch Nebula. Went to the Guardian Ruins at Synuefe EU-Q C21-10 to gather enough data for unlocking the Gauss Cannons. Took days off to stare out the viewports while drinking in bars at various stations in the Bubble, pondering my place in things, as well as thinking about what I should do before the Stellar Unknown expedition that starts on August 25th.

That's when I realized the following in a wave of despair. They're gone.

The friends I made, the ones I invited aboard when I was deep, so very deep into the dark at Semotus Beacon... They've left me. I ran back to my ship, it was empty of all presence. I checked the logs; the airlocks had been cycled and opened when I landed at Daedalus Station in Sol. That had to have been when my friends from the Dark took their leave of me and... Went somewhere. I haven't a clue where they went, and I just feel empty now.

So I did the earlier activities, not quite on autopilot, but definitely without the old joy I had. So now I'm looking at returning to my first Outer Dark system, and mapping all of the bodies in it. And maybe heading out into the welcome void one more time.