OK, Just started a little project. this is about three hours work. (Started at 11pm, stopped at 1:30 am) Not done, still have the rest of the planets to do…
Note I’m not going for realism here, but just an artist look at the solar system
Click for large version, 1600x1200
Update: 12/20
Added Jupiter
Update: 12/22
Added Mercury
Update: 12/23
Added Neptune
wow…it’s excellent 
Looks great :o
Only saturn needs some more realistic things.
looks great, but it seems that there are some problems in the textures (specialy on earth, and saturn) + the image quality is kindda poor, so maybe the txtures problems can be related to this.
Apart for that - realy good! How did you made the earth atmosphere to show only in the light and fade and change color in the dark?
might be the jpeg compression, but it looks fine on my end.
Pretty good work for only 3 hours
Bump for the update!
Very nice renders, and the presentation style looks professional.
The rings of saturn seem to have very sharp edges. A slight blurring at the edges would look nice, I think, although I don’t know if this is realistic (did you see the recent Cassini photograph of Saturn ?). Also, Jupiter looks good but I reckon it would be much improved with a bumpmap (damned if I know how to make one though ! 
)
I await the remaining planets !
I will not add my ohhs and ahhs about your blender skills but let me make one small observation. The rings of saturn seem to be off-center. At first I thought it was the camera angle that caused this but on subsequent viewings I noticed that the rings are not centered on the planet.
A small thing and probably not noticable to anyone that is not an anal compulsive like myself 
and now we have…
the LARGEST EARTH ever rendered in Blender!
WARNING: HUGE IMAGE
http://www.b5-blender.com/temp/earthLARGE.jpg
(Someone wanted it to make a poster)
That is a VERY cool picture ! :o
(but I do not think it is the largest Earth ever rendered, I have rendered an Earth at 2000*1500 pixels with the Earth completely filling the image. However yours look about a bazillion times better than mine (small version here : http://www.solarflarestudios.com/forum/download.php?id=272)
How are you making the atmosphere ? It seems to end very abrupty, but looks very good where it is visible.
Now unless I’m confusing you with someone else (please don’t be offeneded if I am!), I believe you were writing a tutorial on rendering planets like this…so finish it ! It’ll make a nice christmas present
One other question : Are those clouds bumpmapped ? If so, did you make the texture yourself, and if not, where did you get it from ?
Anyway, just seeing the image is useful - shows me what I’ve done wrong. Back to the tweaking, endless, mind-numbing tweaking…
Once again, very photoreal image !
hehehehehehe…
If I can, that is the plan…I can say with a fair amount of certainty that it will be done this week though. 
I’m using the cloud texture for the bump map
I’m using a fake freshnel for the atmosphere on the planet, and for the glow a ring of Halos.
thanks man.
All hail the mighty broadband internet connection
I need to make myself a poster of that! That’s COOL!!!
Good job! How did you do the stars like that with brighter and darker areas? Also, where did you get the earth bumpmap?
do a quick google search for nasa blue marble, that will lead you to the earth textures.
as for the stars…its a texture I made in photoshop
Beautiful - that’s all that comes to mind. I, for one, really like the way the atmospheres fade with camera angle - just curious, how did you do the fake fresnel?
Note to self: bookmark page for new The Planets CD cover
Nice planets and nice composition too.
Only crit is on atmospheres. Where you placed an atmosphere it ends a little abruptly (earth, mars) going from lit to shadow region.
Then, gaseous giants are… herm… gaseous giants, so they should exhibit an atmospheric blur, not a sharp contour 
keep it up!
And make a Sun too!
Stefano
sun will be hard but I think you can do it with what you have so far. If you are going to do a sun, use particles coming off of object inside of the sun that the viewer cant see.