I'm sure it's happened to everyone at least once. You're turbo-ing through a sector without a care in the world, when BAM, you run into the dark side of an asteroid that you hadn't even seen. I suggest that all ships be equipped with headlights so that they can see oncoming asteroids in time to avoid them. Space is dark, any while I like the fact that the asteroids have realistic lighting on them (only lighting the side facing the sun instead of providing an unrealistic ambient lighting setup like some games/movies) it does make navigation unnecessarily perilous. Space is dark, and it's very difficult to make out a black asteroid against a black background. Having headlights so that you can see an oncoming asteroid in time to avoid it would make things far more enjoyable, imho.

In general, if you cannot see the stars, maneuvre until you can. It saves me a lot of times.
I see your point. The first time I came out of sector 10 station I only found the way out when someone else blundered in. It's just too dark in there without lights on the ships.
(can we get shadows yet? It would be nice to spot an enemy approaching by their shadow on the asteroid next to you...)

Yes, you CAN navigate by the gaps in the stars, but it's still very annoying. I can't count the number of times I've swerved to avoid what turned out to be just a largish star-free patch on the background pixmap.

/me doesnt get background :(

What os are you using? I got the same thing on whatever the latest pre-jaguar version of os x is back in 3.1.x...

go grab a 900mhz g3 ibook!
That'll fix most of your problems!