Been experimenting with something else again, inspired this time by a scene 
in the novel Nova, by Samuel Delany.
This megapov image is nothing special, but it highlights a couple of things.

First of all, there is - again - the problem of scale. The real planetary 
measurements have been used for this image. However, because of the z-buffer 
limit, I had to scale down the kilometer values by a factor 3.
Second, If I want to build something on Triton, I want them to be 
metre-scaled. So the camera position for instance is scaled down by a factor 
6. Which generates the known problem of ultra-fine resolution, already 
discussed here during the Ringworld experiments by Bill Pragnell, myself 
(and some others?) last year. I rendered this scene also in version 3.7 and, 
interestingly, the surface of Triton disappeared!!! Rendered in the adapted 
3.6.0 version (see the Ringworld experiments) was not better than this 
image.

So, what do we see here?
- Neptune is visible as it would be from the surface of Triton. Its axial 
tilt in relation to the ecliptic is provided.
- The rings of Neptune are there. However, their width has been grossly 
exagerated. In reality they are probably not or hardly visible.
- The small dot to the right of the planet is the moon Proteus. It looks 
like this is probably the only moon really visible from Triton, the others 
being too small or to far away to appear in the sky.
- The red cone is a placeholder, traced upon the surface of Triton. It casts 
no shadow, probably because of the resolution limit.

Conclusion: If I want to create a scene, I shall probably fake reality by 
scaling a sphere to the apparent size of Neptune, within a business-as-usual 
POV-Ray scene. But at least, I shall know that the apparent size is 
correct!!

Comments are of course more than welcome!!

Thomas

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