First, I'll say that I really dig how you handled the stars on this map. Very cool! The stars on the final (no thumbnail version) are nice but, honestly, I kinda liked the less realistic, more dense starfield you had going in the first version. It was very stylistic. I get, however, that you seem to be moving the map in a more realistic direction so that's cool. One thing you might consider, though, is adding some color variation to them.

Next is trade routes. I don't so much have a problem with the dots but look around and see some straight routes and some windy or curvy routes and it makes me wonder about interstellar travel in your setting. Why aren't they all straight? Or curvy? If you have to weave around "warp obstacles", for instance" on some routes, why not all? Any answer is fine, of course, I just wanted to bring it up for your consideration in case you hadn't thought of it. On style, I'd say you should go with something thinner and more "techie" than the big white dots, which more stylistically match your first map.

The nebulae look awesome. Nuff said.

I like the borders but wouldn't mind seeing them tightened up a wee bit. It's hard to put borders where there are no geographical features - like between islands and a mainland. In your first map you had a hex grid. Why'd you nix that? I'm old skool and am a sucker for a hex map whatever the subject - so take my advice with a grain of salt - but I really like that. If you added it back in it'd give you something to hang your borders on. Right now they feel a little "floaty" and vague. How are they determined? Negotiated boundaries? If so, maybe there'd be no gaps inbetween? Your mode of interstellar travel will also be a factor here...if you don't have to go through the intervening "real space" then who cares about borders? You only have to worry about where you can get to from where. If you have to cruise through space then you can have things like borders...and you can mass lots of ships on them preparing for invasions and so on. If that's the case, though, I wouldn't expect to see a lot of unclaimed territories between interstellar nations.

I like your font pretty well but it is a little "expected". There are a lot of sci-fi fonts out there and maybe you could try out a few others. Just a thought. If you really like this one or it's a requirement because you're using it elsewhere then it's a perfectly good font and no need to change.

That's all I can think of at the moment and my laptop's running out of juice! Nice map so far. Looking forward to seeing where you take it.
M