This mod needs a contract system for finding and researching the celestial bodies.

Plans:
Step1: Locating where to look contract - blocked until i find a way to completely hide undiscovered bodies. - so perhaps future version.

Step2: Search the Skies Contract offered.
This contract will cost money and time investment. (time and money relative to distance away from home planet).
Eventually the contract is completed and you are rewarded with a found new celestial body.

Step2(alternate1): If TST mod is installed user can point the camera at an unknown body and take a picture. Results in new celestial body found.

Step2(alternate2): Use TB-75 or TST camera to point and scan. This speeds up Step2 Search the Skies Contract.

Step3: When a body is initially found. Contracts are offered to Research the body by research steps.
Again, time and money investment are required.
Step3(options): Additional Research Scanning contracts are offered. Point TB-75 or TST cameras at the celestial body and scan over a period of time or take pictures. Completion of these contracts boosts the research percentage on the celestial body.
Parameters on these contracts require upgrades or the more powerful TST telescope camera depending on percentage researched and how far away the object is. this requires Part Upgrades (available now in KSP 1.2) to be purchases via science tech tree (but note they do NOT alter vessels already launched, so further challenge).
Eventually after enough Step3 contracts the celestial body is fully researched.

Other changes - big cost and time changes to actually finding, researching the celestial bodies. They are too easy now.
Re-balance parts, upgrades and costs of parts appropriately to the whole system.
The Upgrade levels of the Ground Observatory are a factor in how fast, and how far you can research and what contracts are offered.

Step 1: I have an idea. But needs stock changes.
Step 2: Coded for the Observatory.
Step2a/b: Needs to be finished for Telescopes.
Step 3: Coded for the Observatory.
Step 3 options: Needs to be done for Telescopes.

Removed ability to research through the UI. too simple. But there is a settings option to turn this back on.

Ideas captured from Forum Thread:
When I think of the ability to go and look for and find system bodies I always remember the planets out to Saturn have been known for thousands of years without the aid of a telescope and were finally recognized as other system bodies like Earth by someone with a simple quill and parchment doing some math. The more distant bodies required an investment of time measured in years and predictive math combined with observations. Perhaps the approach could be to require a more intricate method of discovery for anything beyond the immediate neighbors. For instance, Eve and Duna/Ike could be found with a simple method like what is already used but anything beyond that (Moho/Dres/Jool(and moons)/Eeloo/other planet packs) would require an alternative method.

I could see it working something like this :

A contract or voluntary project could start the search for a new body
A search requires investment: time and funds, maybe even science as your researchers are occupied in the hunt. The telescope involved should be unavailable during this time.
Step 1: Locating where to look. Could(should?) be time based requiring investment of resources - possibly being able to go faster or slower depending on levels of investment
Step 2: A scan is initiated with further need of resources as above, again with possible variables available to increase/decrease time requirements
Step 3: Discovery!  This opens up the ability to travel to the body and awards the initial discovery science
Optional: More contracts/voluntary research to discover more about the body.  We learned a LOT about the planets by simply observing them

This would serve as a way of giving early and easy means of discovering the immediate neighbors without forcing the process on someone while still providing a deeper framework for later play that helps expand on the system. If possible, any deeper system that is added should be able to be turned off allowing the simple method to be used for any system body to satisfy those who would not enjoy it since that was a factor in the past (and from some comments still is).

Except Step 3 is further expanded depending on how far away the body is with further scanning and picture taking contracts that gradually reveal the details of the body (progressive textures) I'm thinking of introducing these and using the telescope in this mod along with TST telescopes, DMOS scanners, SCANsat, etc to gradually reveal more details of the body. This could all be driven by a contracts system.. I'm looking for any more ideas from others? Now's your chance to offer suggestions.

from @rasta013 on the forums:
However, it has also become really easy to find all the bodies in the solar system at once which means an instant influx of science with very little effort. Now that this is integrated with TST and (working nicely so far I might add) I had an idea about this whole 'find everything at once' issue. Would it be possible to limit what can be found with each telescope? For instance, the first scope could be used to find anything local and maybe immediately next door like Eve and Duna. Another alternative instead of the immediate neighbors would be to limit it strictly to finding planets but not moons. If this could be tied to the tracking station even more tightly it could be planets only with level 2 and moons with level 3. Furthermore, if you've got TST installed, it could instead fall over to planets for the first scope, planets+moons for the space telescope. I don't know if you've gone this far since I haven't played with the deep space TST scope yet but adding in that with awards for galaxy discovery could be a third stage.

The other observation I had was in regards to the research costs. They are needed and I support them fully. But...they are so cheap right now that it was no issue at all in my career to find all 29 bodies in my OPM setup and research every last one of them one after the other. Bear in mind I'm playing on hard with contracts modified further to reduce payouts to 25% and I still didn't have any issue paying for all 29 bodies. I have yet to dive into the configs so this may be a simple issue of just bumping up the costs for personal tastes. If so, could I suggest maybe having this available as an UI configurable setting similar to the science slider?