Thanks! Didn't take particularly long to set it up, really. I set up a basic curve of about 4-5 spheres and applied the materials to it, then copied/pasted several times, each time positioning them along a spiral. From time to time I had to adjust individual spheres in groups to keep the spiral going evenly. Then when I had it, I grouped all the groups together, flattened and stretched that group some. Then I made copies of the one spiral and made them smaller or larger to suit and to fit. Then I applied changed the colors on the new groups. The central "star" is a lens flare point light surrounded by 3 speres with a yellowish volume smoke material, rather thin, as opposed to the spiral mats which are fairly thick. Then I rendered it once with multi-colors in Final, and saved that. Then I rendered it again in Final with no anti-aliasing, after changing all the spiral mats to pure white, and then blended the two versions in Painter 6. Each render took about 35 minutes.