UPDATE: Page 2
Yes, I am still working on my earth, the main holdup is the atmosphere right now, trying to get the glow easily…
as of yet, I don’t know how. I found M@dcows thread, but the links are fead, if anyone still has that zip, PLEASE send it my way.
anyhoo, some pics. 
oh, and this is 100% blender, no photoshoping, etc. Direct from blender, just compressed as a JPEG. Using Nasa Blue Marble 8152x4076 color corrected maps
THe power of a good texture over a sphere. The atmosphere glow looks… er… wait… is that just the blending of the texture?
Where did you get the texture from anyways? (I know, nasa blah blah) but a more precise link would be much appreciated.
the atmosphere is another layer, actually, its has its own sphere. Same for the clouds.
there are four objects in there, the land, the clouds, the atmosphere (Actually two atmospheres for the freshnel effect) and another sphere that is about 99% alpha, shaded blue.
The land texure uses
Col
Bump
Spec
there is also an emit which I didn’t use here
and Cloud Shadow
then of course there is the cloud spere.
heres where the maps are from
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/
oh, and a major hint, DON’T use the comined image, it looks crappy.
You also have to color correct them.
Open them up in photoshop and desaturate by 50%, then reduce the color by 15-20%
oh, and if its just a good texture slaped on a sphere, lets see you do an earth this good. %|
That looks really nice. I do think the glow looks a bit overdone on some images but yours is cool. (IMHO of course 
)
By the way for some really nice planetary maps (seperate colour and bump maps)
http://gw.marketingden.com/planets/planets.html
That looks wickid, all it needs is a starfield in the background and it will looks perfect :o 8)
Cool Earth ! Is the atmosphere a blend texture ? If not how did you do it ?
For the bump maps did you just use the colour maps or get 8k bump maps from somewhere ?
Wish they’d post high quality jpegs at the Blue Marble site instead of huge TIFFs, I may not be able to download them with my modem the disconnects every 2 hours.
Another good resource is www.space-graphics.com which does post jpegs, but doesn’t have clouds - I think it has bump and specular maps. Not sure if my computer can handle 10k textures though…
wow that is amazing!!! one thing is lacking: what about atmosphere?
:o Nice free planet textures spread over 3 great website 
, thanks dudes 
dang, just relized Blue Marble stopped offering the Bump, Spec, topygraphy, and many other maps…glad I got them
(I have the 52000x26000 res maps)
I have seperate Bump, Color, Spec, and cloud maps, all at 52000x26000, however since blender can’t use them (Big crash, LOL) I resized to 8152x4076.
So yes, seperate Bump map. Note how rivers even have spec, thats due to the spec map I’m using, high res = good thing.
and yes, the atmosphere is a blend texture, normal mapping, X - - coords, alpha, etc.
as I stated, I’m still working on my tutorial for this, and that will include the JPG maps I’m using, be forwarned, they are NOT small, the cloud map is 16 megs, the color map is 24 megs, bump and spec are about 4 megs each.
Though I will most likely compress the images and knock them down in size. Actually, for the cloud and color maps, I can point you at Nasa’s site for the blue marble maps…
oh, and I’ll include the night map, not the color one on Nasas site, JUST the lights, no texture. (Looks sweet)
looks great, but did you use bumbmap? i somehow find the mountains overhight. …
as I stated, I’m still working on my tutorial for this, and that will include the JPG maps I’m using, be forwarned, they are NOT small, the cloud map is 16 megs, the color map is 24 megs, bump and spec are about 4 megs each.
Though I will most likely compress the images and knock them down in size. Actually, for the cloud and color maps, I can point you at Nasa’s site for the blue marble maps…
oh, and I’ll include the night map, not the color one on Nasas site, JUST the lights, no texture. (Looks sweet)
Cool ! As long as the images are all seperate…then I just have to worry about getting my computer to render 8k textures, not sure if it can handle 'em (Blender can load a 10k texture in a few minutes, but not sure if it can render it with oversampling, must experiment).
Hi A2597,
Sorry, I cant find that .blend file anymore, I changed disks a couple of months ago and it seems to have got lost in the process…
But that earth map you have there is spectacular, any chance of uploading some of them and letting us share in their hi res goodness??? 
If not, I dont blame ya
M@dcow…
oh…well. bummer. Guess that means people are stuck using my method of making a circle, scaling it to the size of the planet, subdeviding it, and giving it a halo texture+removing vertexes not in light…
and yes, I’ll be sharing in the high-res goodness. But not right now, once I’m done both the model, and a tutorial on how to do it, will be released.
(Actually, I have a version up on my website, with no textures).
Btw, got an idea how to make atmosphere. Make a spheres with the same size as the earth, then add particles system on it with blue coloured halo’s and als alpha, this will work
I have it. Do you want it now?
Absolutly! Might make this model get released sometime this century!
like the work on the shader + textures work you did… nice…
well well, that atmosphere blend REALLY helped, though I can’t get the glow right…
anyhoo, check this out. this is another direct from blender image.
Layers:
Color
Bump
Spec
CloudShadows
Cloud
Atmosphere
Wow that really looks excellent now, the textures are so sharp :o It will look even better when you get the atmoshere sorted.
You still need to add a starfield to the background though! That will really help to finish the composition
well, I could babble on about how that close to earth the shudder speed wouldn’t allow you to see any stars, but I agree it looks better with a few. 
and as to how I got the textures so sharp:
Theres a little button in the textures window I never played with. Its called filter, and defaults to 1.00, I set it to 0.1…
Voila, sharp textures!