I don't approve of usiing the names of a lot wellkown stars in space opera science fiction stories for several reasons.
1) many of them are of types which are not very likely to have habitable planets. Thus if there are planets orbiting those stars which appear to be habitabitable, the theory would be that an advanced civilization terraformed those planets to make them habitable.
2) There are only a few dozen star names which are very familiar to Earth people and will be recognized by the audience. there are believed to be about 100,000,000,000 to 400,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Suppose that a story is set in a galaxy wide empire or ciivlization, where all the stars in the galaxy have been explored and all the habitable planets have been colonized. In that case there will be a billion unfamiliar stars for each star with a familiar name. So the odd would be a bilion to one against a particular star mentioned having afamilair star name. The odds against a bunch of the stars mentioned in a story set in a galaxy-widet emprie or civilization having familiar names would be astronomical.
3) The locations of the stars with Bayer desigations or well known proper names.
A galaxy wide empire or civilization would rule at least the entire galactic disc of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is approximatley about a thousand light years thick and abuut a hundred thousand light years in diameter.
Where are the stars with famous names or with Bayer designations?
Here is a link to a list of the 92 stars which appear the brightest as seen from Earth. Most familair star snames will be on that list.
There are 2 star system within 10 light years (LY) of Earth, 2 at 10-20 LY, 2 at 20 to 30 LY, etc.
There are 31 systems on the list within 100 LY The volume of space from 100 to 200 LY from Earth would have 7 times the volume as the space within 100 LY, yet there re only 17 stars in that volume. The volume between 200 and 400 LY should have 7 times as much volume as that between 100 and 200 LY, but it has only 15 stars on the list.
The volume of space within 1,000 light years has 83 stars on the list. The volume of space 1,000 to 2,615 LY from Earth has 6 stars on the list.
And the other 6,000 or so stars bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye from Earth should have a similar distrubtion in Space.
In our region the distribution of stars is about 0.004 stars per cubic light year. A sphere with a radius of 100 light years would have a volume of 4,188,790.2 cubic light years, and thus about 16,755.16 stars, and only 31 of them would be well known stars on the list, a ratio of 0.018501. The space between 100 and 200 light years would be 7 times as large and so shouldl have about 117,286.12 stars, but only 17 of them ae stars on the list, a ratio of 0.0001449. The space between 200 and 400 light years should have 7 times the volume and so have about 821,002.84 stars, but only 15 are on the list,a rato of 0.0000182.
A sphere with a radius of 1,000 light years has a volume of 4,188,790,200 cubicl ight years and so should contain about 16,755,160.8 stars but only 86 of them are onlthe list, a a ratio of 0.000005132.
So if a volume of explored space is large enough to contain most of the stars with well known names, and thus a writer can name one at random with confidence that it will be within that volume of explorded space, that volume of explored space will be large enough to contain many thousands or evven millions of times as many stars as the ones with famous names, which thus should be only a tiny minority of the stars mentioned in the story.
4) Stars with famous names and designations (and many thousands and miliions of other lesser known stars), have distances which are known with greater or lesser accuracy. Many astronomy books, even popular astronomy books, have a table listing data about a few of the stars which are brightest as seen from Earth (an thus have fmous star names), and alsoa table listing data about a much of the stars which are closest to Earth. That data often includes their astronmical coordinates (their direcitions as seen ffrom Earth) and their distances from Earth.
So a lot of people interested in astronomy may remember something about the distances of the famous stars from Earth.
When I first say scenes from "The Cage" in "The Menagerie Part 1" I noticed this dialog:
and:
According to science fiction conventions, Rigel VII should be a planet of the star Rigel (Beta Orionis) and the Vega colony shoudl be on a planet orbiting the star Vega (Alpha Lyrae). And to me it seemed very odd to chose to take the seven injured crewmen from Rigel VII to the Vega colony. Since Rigel was known in the 1960s to be about 500 to 1,000 light years from Earth And Vega is about 25 light years from Earth. It would be just as easy to go to Earth, which presumably has he best hospitals, as to go to Vega.
Actually, as eeen from Earth, the angle between the directions to Rigel and Vega is more than 90 degrees, and Vega is a few light years farther from Rigel than Earth is.
Some years later I thought of an analogy on the surface of Earth. Suppose that a civiilization is expanding from San Francisco, the analog to Earth, and has colonized many places in the bay area, included Benecia and Tiberon (which a couple of star trek planets are named after).
Suppose an airplane from San Francisco is exploring around Tijuana (330 miles from San Francisco) or Cabo San Lucas (860 miles from San Francisco), more or less equivalent to Rigel.. The commander decides to take 7 injured crew members to Benecia (23 miles from San Francisco), the analog of the Vega Colony, for treatment instead of to San Francisco, the equivalent of Earth. If the medical facilities of a colony world will be good enough why not take them to clonies at the sites of San Diego, Los Angleles, Monterey, or San Jose instead of going beyond San francisco to Benecia?
If a writer who doesn't know the distances to stars with famous names choses to mention them randomly, he runs the risk that anyone who knows a little about astronomy will notice that a star described as being close to Earth and one of the first to be explored by Earth is actually ten times as far away from Earth as the allegely "distant" star which is just being explored for the first time.
And there are other problems with using famous stars, but these should do.
1) many of them are of types which are not very likely to have habitable planets. Thus if there are planets orbiting those stars which appear to be habitabitable, the theory would be that an advanced civilization terraformed those planets to make them habitable.
2) There are only a few dozen star names which are very familiar to Earth people and will be recognized by the audience. there are believed to be about 100,000,000,000 to 400,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Suppose that a story is set in a galaxy wide empire or ciivlization, where all the stars in the galaxy have been explored and all the habitable planets have been colonized. In that case there will be a billion unfamiliar stars for each star with a familiar name. So the odd would be a bilion to one against a particular star mentioned having afamilair star name. The odds against a bunch of the stars mentioned in a story set in a galaxy-widet emprie or civilization having familiar names would be astronomical.
3) The locations of the stars with Bayer desigations or well known proper names.
A galaxy wide empire or civilization would rule at least the entire galactic disc of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is approximatley about a thousand light years thick and abuut a hundred thousand light years in diameter.
Where are the stars with famous names or with Bayer designations?
Here is a link to a list of the 92 stars which appear the brightest as seen from Earth. Most familair star snames will be on that list.
There are 2 star system within 10 light years (LY) of Earth, 2 at 10-20 LY, 2 at 20 to 30 LY, etc.
There are 31 systems on the list within 100 LY The volume of space from 100 to 200 LY from Earth would have 7 times the volume as the space within 100 LY, yet there re only 17 stars in that volume. The volume between 200 and 400 LY should have 7 times as much volume as that between 100 and 200 LY, but it has only 15 stars on the list.
The volume of space within 1,000 light years has 83 stars on the list. The volume of space 1,000 to 2,615 LY from Earth has 6 stars on the list.
And the other 6,000 or so stars bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye from Earth should have a similar distrubtion in Space.
In our region the distribution of stars is about 0.004 stars per cubic light year. A sphere with a radius of 100 light years would have a volume of 4,188,790.2 cubic light years, and thus about 16,755.16 stars, and only 31 of them would be well known stars on the list, a ratio of 0.018501. The space between 100 and 200 light years would be 7 times as large and so shouldl have about 117,286.12 stars, but only 17 of them ae stars on the list, a ratio of 0.0001449. The space between 200 and 400 light years should have 7 times the volume and so have about 821,002.84 stars, but only 15 are on the list,a rato of 0.0000182.
A sphere with a radius of 1,000 light years has a volume of 4,188,790,200 cubicl ight years and so should contain about 16,755,160.8 stars but only 86 of them are onlthe list, a a ratio of 0.000005132.
So if a volume of explored space is large enough to contain most of the stars with well known names, and thus a writer can name one at random with confidence that it will be within that volume of explorded space, that volume of explored space will be large enough to contain many thousands or evven millions of times as many stars as the ones with famous names, which thus should be only a tiny minority of the stars mentioned in the story.
4) Stars with famous names and designations (and many thousands and miliions of other lesser known stars), have distances which are known with greater or lesser accuracy. Many astronomy books, even popular astronomy books, have a table listing data about a few of the stars which are brightest as seen from Earth (an thus have fmous star names), and alsoa table listing data about a much of the stars which are closest to Earth. That data often includes their astronmical coordinates (their direcitions as seen ffrom Earth) and their distances from Earth.
So a lot of people interested in astronomy may remember something about the distances of the famous stars from Earth.
When I first say scenes from "The Cage" in "The Menagerie Part 1" I noticed this dialog:
and:
According to science fiction conventions, Rigel VII should be a planet of the star Rigel (Beta Orionis) and the Vega colony shoudl be on a planet orbiting the star Vega (Alpha Lyrae). And to me it seemed very odd to chose to take the seven injured crewmen from Rigel VII to the Vega colony. Since Rigel was known in the 1960s to be about 500 to 1,000 light years from Earth And Vega is about 25 light years from Earth. It would be just as easy to go to Earth, which presumably has he best hospitals, as to go to Vega.
Actually, as eeen from Earth, the angle between the directions to Rigel and Vega is more than 90 degrees, and Vega is a few light years farther from Rigel than Earth is.
Some years later I thought of an analogy on the surface of Earth. Suppose that a civiilization is expanding from San Francisco, the analog to Earth, and has colonized many places in the bay area, included Benecia and Tiberon (which a couple of star trek planets are named after).
Suppose an airplane from San Francisco is exploring around Tijuana (330 miles from San Francisco) or Cabo San Lucas (860 miles from San Francisco), more or less equivalent to Rigel.. The commander decides to take 7 injured crew members to Benecia (23 miles from San Francisco), the analog of the Vega Colony, for treatment instead of to San Francisco, the equivalent of Earth. If the medical facilities of a colony world will be good enough why not take them to clonies at the sites of San Diego, Los Angleles, Monterey, or San Jose instead of going beyond San francisco to Benecia?
If a writer who doesn't know the distances to stars with famous names choses to mention them randomly, he runs the risk that anyone who knows a little about astronomy will notice that a star described as being close to Earth and one of the first to be explored by Earth is actually ten times as far away from Earth as the allegely "distant" star which is just being explored for the first time.
And there are other problems with using famous stars, but these should do.
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started like WW2 where the Japanese (Klingons) invaded and took the Philippines (Vulcan) and the Battle of Midway (Axanar) turned the tide of war. A few years later, MacArthur returns to recapture the Philippines (the Vulcan Expedition). The U.S. (Federation) is on the verge of wiping out Japan (Klingon) but they negotiate peace instead and stop the war (the Axanar Peace Mission). 
