Interesting article, especially as the Subaru telescope just delivered unmatched new pictures of Andromeda (http://www.subarutelescope.org).

There is of course an example for a 3D field of galaxies in the examples for AstronomicalData:
equatorialToCartesian[{ra_, dec_,
dist_}] := {dist Cos[15 ra Degree] Sin[dec Degree + Pi/2],
dist Sin[15 ra Degree] Sin[dec Degree + Pi/2],
dist Cos[dec Degree + Pi/2]}
galaxies = {AstronomicalData[#, "Name"],
AstronomicalData[#, "RightAscension"],
AstronomicalData[#, "Declination"],
AstronomicalData[#, "DistanceLightYears"]} & /@
AstronomicalData["LocalGroup"];
Graphics3D[
Cases[galaxies, {nam_, ra_?NumberQ, dec_?NumberQ, dist_?NumberQ} :>
Tooltip[Sphere[equatorialToCartesian[{ra, dec, dist}],
Scaled[0.009]], nam]]]

It is very straightforward to use similar code for the surroundings of our Solar System. Question: Is this the most efficient code to query the curated data or do you have any suggestions to optimize it, e.g., for 1000 stars to show, possible in the correct color?