I’ve been working on making some astronomical renders, and felt it wastime to composite a few of my creations together.
The planet and moon were created in blender, the stars and any nebulas were created in photoshop.
Criticism would be really helpful, as I plan to make a lot of these kinds of images.
Very well executed, and a nice dramatic render. You provide a nice balance between the accentuation of the planet by the nebula, as if the planet is staring off into space in loneliness. The use of black space around the planet also helps with this effect. I would remove the random stars though, they detract from the lonely atmosphere. The blue color scheme is also a great choice to convey emotions here. 4*s from me. As long as you are doing some astronomical renders, why not try to continue with the theme? I’d like to see what you could do with 'em!
cheers for the criticism, I see what you mean about the distracting bright stars and had a go at removing most of them :
I have a thread which has quite a few other tests and astronomy pics here: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=208649&p=1800755#post1800755
Jon Dawe, I like your style! It seems you can create nice space models. The model you have made in this thread looks funny, because most rings are not that color. I suppose that everything is bluish because of the glowing nebula, but a nebula could never shine light that far to color a planet. Good work.
It’s very good. i am amazed 
. I have only one Criticism and that is the shadow created on the rings. In my opinion it should be still be lit but very lightly. It is still awesome and i don’t want you to ruin the great shadow on the planet
Much better second render! The sparse faint stars in the back provide a populated backdrop that is subtle enough not to be detected. 4.5 *s now ;).
The nebula does not fit the compo. Looks to “photoshoped” compared to the planet.
