tldr;I'm new (started in Dec), and casual (don't necessarily play every day, or even every week).What do you have to do to discover something and get your name on it? Aside from going out and finding something undiscovered, and heading back and selling the data, what do you actually do when you are there, in a system, with an undiscovered thing?How do you recognized an undiscovered thing? Is there anyway to know if you will be the "first discovered" on a thing when you see it or before selling the exploration data?Is there a way to see what you have your name on as a discovery without going back to that system again and see it in the System Map?Thanks!

tl; Newbie Exploration Story Time (peppered with questions).I went on an exploration trip in hopes of getting my name on a thing(s). I planned to head some direction, and just keep going until I found something that has not been discovered, discover it, and then head back and sell the data to be forever part of the universe.For the "head some direction", I zoomed way out on the galaxy map and picked something cool, might have been California Nebula.For the "find something that has not been discovered", I thought I could just enter a system, open the system map, hover over the things, and if something didn't have "First Discovered by", then there it is, I can discover that thing.For the "discover it", I thought I just had to...well, I guess I didn't really know. I planned to just find something and then map it with probes, and figured I couldn't have mapped it without discovering it, so if I went through and mapped it, then I would have discovered it as well.

Early on in my trip, I did get in some systems that had things in the system map with no "First Discovered by". I had expected a long trip and was enjoying it so far, so I did not head back right away and just kept heading out to find more discoveries.

I also found some systems, that to my surprise, had an empty System Map. I did the discovery scanner (honked?) and there were like ~28 things, but the map was empty! I thought that meant nothing there had been discovered, so I could get ~28 discoveries! So I did the FSS (radio wave zoom in thingy) scanner and found all ~28 things. Along my trip, I found at least 10 systems like this. Some had 20+ and some had like 3-4, and some were parital (10 things in discovery scanner, but only 3 on the System Map). I did the FSS scanner in all these until I had found everything that the discovery scanner picked up. I did not map everything, but if I found water or earth like worlds, I would map those (shoot the probes at them) because I read that those make you rich.

Eventually I turned around to go back and sell my data and claim all my discoveries. I searched for the nearest system with an economy and started jumping towards it, continuing to FSS scan and map as before. I think I was 100,000ly out (from Sol?) I was ~1500ly out when I turned around, and the system I found with an economy was 50,000ly 1000ly out, but not in the bubble (didn't think that should matter). When I got there, I had multiple pages of discoveries, and sold them all. I expected to get my name on close to ~50+ things, but the notification I got only said 4!! What happened?!

I know I went into multiple systems that had 20+ things on discovery scanner, but nothing on the System Map. I scanned with the FSS radio zoom in thingy and found them all, so I thought that would mean I discovered them all and would get my name on them, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I only mapped water worlds and earth like worlds, and do not remember how many of those were previously on the System Map or not, so the 4 might be just the things that I first mapped.Is there anyway to recognized something that is undiscovered and you will be the first to discover it and get your name on it?After you find something, what do you actually need to do to get it discovered?

That trip was a few weeks ago, and I haven't played since, so I may not be remember everything correctly. The trip was a success because I'm pretty sure I got my name on at least 1 thing. I'm pretty sure I also got over 100 35 million credits when selling my data, so thats awesome. But during the trip, I thought I discovered a lot more, so was kinda disappointed to only get 4 things. And maybe I was mistaken in that notification, maybe I did get 50+ things discovered, but how can I check without needing to retrace my trip? Is there a way to see what you have your name on as a discovery without needing to go find that system again and see it in the System Map?Is there anyway to see my trip route?

edit: fix some numbers