Thanks for the info Rutra,  I was talking about the distant images of the planet similiar to the one I have displayed as far as ground shadows.  The one I was refering to was with a POV of about 250 to 300 miles up.  As for the rings, I'm going to try the Torus thing with light gel/caustics--thanks.

Since you are passionate about stars and space (like I am), you may want to give Solarvoyager.com a look see (I'm a moderator there).  We are relatively small group consisting of folks from NASA/JPL, teens through folks older than dirt.  Only requirement is an interest in Space, astronomy and art.  We do critique each other--nicely.

As for the plug, we do plug Renderosity over there-eg folks needing help in Vue or ideas of renderings in Vue are often refered here.  Jan