Both sounds features of [wiki]Telescope[/wiki]. Gray lollopops at the edge of scanner show the direction of additional planets, Sun and other objects you know outside scanner range.
In green alert (mean no other ship in your scanner) some navigation circles (named to
masslock borders) show the border of spheres around masses (ships, moons and planets) what you should avoid if you want travel at high speed using your
Torus drive. For example if the station is on the other side of the planet then you should not fly straight if the station is within the big circle around the planet, aim a bit outside of the border instead and go around, in this way you can keep your ship in Torus speed until the station sidle to the border - it is exactly at the same height where the planet start masslock you.
At last resort you can turn off some features you do not like if you prime the Telescope equipment and use the mode key (b) to select one from the built-in menu.
Telescope Extender and Gravity Scanner are two different equipments, the second has longer range but the first also put more target to your scanner, circles and lightballs to the ships you can see with your eyes somewhat outside scanner range also. Once I wrote
a tale where I used this feature to keep my ship outside of a dangerous spacelane.
