I have a quest generation tool in Star Explorers, where it gives you a sector, a type of star and the number of the planet (i.e. third planet from star) then it gives x and y coordinates for you to look for a stash of items on the planet surface. I got the idea from STALKER. If you could use some kind of landmarks to tell the player where to look for the quest item, rather than just showing it there on the map, that might make things more interesting.
For instance, find the ghost near the pile of bones, defeat it, then take the potion and bring it to the wizard, who is in the southern-most forest... This way the player would need to look around these areas a bit, and will feel more like they accomplished something.