Compositing a Background

Okay, so I’m not new to forums, but I am new to Blender and the community, so if I stuff up, I apologise. I’m also new to the use of nodes, and I just cannot get them to cooperate.

I have just gone through most of Andrew’s (Blender Guru) planet Earth tutorial - I say most as I do not generally like the night light setup, so I haven’t finished it - but I do like stars in the background. I cannot seem to be able to get them there though. They either end up covering over the scene (planet and all), or cause the atmosphere “glow” effect to disappear, or do not show at all. I’ve tried all manner of node setups but I’m essentially clasping at bent straws and obviously do not know what I’m doing.

I hope to add an image of my node setup as it stands, and ask for guidance, please. I created this on Blender 3.2 if it’s any relevance, and have just installed 3.3.

Do you have render with transparent background?

Thanks for your reply mate.

It looks slightly different to the image you posted, but yes I do. Through experimentation, it would appear it’s the Shadow pass stuffing things up (in my Layman’s knowledge), setting the image to black wherever there’s not a planet. It’s why I cannot use the World backdrop to add in the stars, as mentioned in the YouTube comments.

I just wanted to let anyone visiting here, that I have found “a” solution. It’s probably wrong and it may not be pretty, but at least it works. If anyone has any advice on how to improve the setup, I really would be interested in learning the process. Thanks all.