I just started playing with this last night. Following the Earth media, and
Blue Mars threads from p.b.i I started to recreate the orbit animation I
mentioned (also in p.b.i)and decided to try the stars post_process feature.

I wanted realistic scales, so I did some research (some from memory).

Earth diameter - 8,000 km
Moon diameter - 2,180 km
Sun diameter - 872,000 km
distance to Moon - 400,000 km
distance to Sun - 93,000,000 km

This results in pov units (for my scene):

Earth diameter                    -  1 pu
Moon diam.                        -.27 pu
Sun diam                            -218pu

distance to Moon -        50.004 pu
distance to Sun   - 11,625.865 pu

So, I used a glow for the sun with a radius of 1/2 S.D. in p.u. (109 pu).
Obviously, the realistic scale caused a problem with usefulness given
resolution restraints (for one), but worse yet the Stars post_process method
overwrites the glow, as well as the dark side of the Earth (during eclipse
from camera viewpoint). In other words, it draws over the glow and the Earth
positions. Uncool!

So, I am forced to go back to the sky_sphere non-aliased approach. :(

Grim

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