The sun is eliptical, because: it is not in the center of the image and you're using Vue's original camera setting to focal 35. This is a relatively wide angle. If you have a real photo cam you know that this focal deforms every thing what is close to the borders. Use a camera angle at focal 45/50 wich corresponds to the human eye. You also can try with a focal 80/100 or more, but then you will loose lots of deepth. Your image looks nice but very flat. You can get better sandstorm effects with spheres mapped with cloud material which you tint in sand color and make it more or less transparent. :-)Guitta