The telescopes we have today can see galaxies tens of billions of light years away. With a gravity focus telescope, using the Sun's own gravity well as a gigantic lens, you could potentially get enough magnification to make detailed maps of planets around stars dozens of light years away. Again, space is mostly empty. It's not like on Earth where the atmosphere makes things too hazy to see when they get far enough away. The concept that distance is an impediment to observation is an Earthbound assumption that does not apply in space. The biggest mistake that TV and movie writers make when writing about space is assuming it works like Earth. It very, very much does not. Nothing in the entire universe is "out of range" of visual sensors unless it's behind some dense obstruction like the core of the galaxy -- or unless it's more than 45.7 billion light-years away, because then the light hasn't had enough time to reach us in the age of the universe.
Again: Yes, obviously you'd want to send a ship eventually to do more detailed exploration. The problem, as I've said, is with the idea of sending a starship to make the first charts of a sector. Realistically, most any sector of space should be mapped out well before it's actually visited.
That's surprising, given that she has a Japanese surname and was clearly described in the books as having a biracial appearance ("Asian eyes above sculpted European cheekbones" is how Keith put it in her first scene in Q&A).
