Quote - images look great. Any chance you can give render times and your processor specs?

I don't remember exactly, but I created all scenes and renders in a single evening. I'm using a fairly standard off the shelf at Best Buy Intel Quad-Core: 6Gb memory desktop.

Vue 8 seems to render a tad bit faster for me than 7. As Bruno mentioned, none of the atmospheres had clouds in them-- so the renders were pretty quick. 

To get rid of noise in Godrays, I used an old trick of Dave Burdick's: up the anti-aliasing to something like 95% quality and it really helps. I believe some of the scenes above will come with Vue 8, so you will be able to study them directly if you purchase an upgrade.