epic scale

doggies, what a fine image! sure wish I could live to see this.... certainly not under the Yomama administration!

Fine anglr! I love this .

This is gorgeous! I love what you did with the terrain, and the landers look fantastic in this setting. I also like how you've got real a real starscape in the background, something like what the people out there might even be able to experience. Ah, to dream! Fantastic work, once again!

Amazing sci-fi scene. I like it!!

Thanks NefariousDrO, I neglected to mention that I set up this shot in Celestia to get the orientation of Saturn and the visible nebula correct, then I reconstructed the sky as seen from Dione using high grade astronomical image sources in order to get the required resolution to match the render field.

Simply wonderful! What a great image with a moon or planet of strange rotation, unless they are on it's equator. Ayway, good job! (5)

Thanks Lotus253, The shot is set-up in Celestia, a real-time astronomical positioning program which allows one to place a camera on any known astronomical body (or in orbit around any known body) in the solar system, at any specified date and time. The program calculates what view will result based on known orbital mechanics. Camera POV for this shot is on Dione's equator, the position of Saturn, along with all other moons in the Saturn system, as well as the two large nebula's visible, are accurate for a specific time and date, this is what one would see standing on the surface of Dione at the date and time I selected to render the shot.

Excellent image! I really like that background terrain. Excellent way for the astronauts to get down to the surface. Good use of Celestia, too (what date did you pick? Something in 1975?) I wonder (and I don't know the answer) if there would really be a reflection on the ice. Would the ice at that temperature, shattered by countless impacts, be more like a sandy regolith (only here as ice, not rock). If so, it would be bright and reflective like snow, but you can't see your reflection in snow.

Thanks geirla, Your raise some interesting questions. When I prepped this version of the image I was thinking that the landing jets would blast the surface of the ice to a superficial surface thaw and instant re-freeze, and so there might be reflection -- at least that was my thought. The surface of Dione is at near absolute zero -- would a rocket exhaust be sufficient to create this effect? It's an interesting question and I'm open to speculation here -- to be honest I didn't research the answer. This was a case of matching a new render against a black background to a pre-created landscape and backdrop. I set up the lighting to match my original render, then eye-balled the landscape and aligned the camera so the landers would render at correct perspective and angle to the surface -- then rendered the landers, then I rendered an object-mask, and brought the landers into the image in Photoshop. When I created the set-up in Celestia I used the clock-forward, clock-backward script to run the clock at high speed to the point that I saw the alignment I wanted -- then I ran a render. I used the Celestia render to set up this scene, which is a re-creation of the vantage point using much higher grade photo sources, I have the render but I run with the on-screen descriptive text turned off -- so it is merely a Celestia render of the sky without the tags.

I don't remember this moon. I'll have to look it up. I like the slight reflection on the surface.

Fantastic image and modeling. Corrie

WOW! EXCELLENT SF!

Very nice!! i love seeing pictures like this :-) nice touch having the people at the bottom of the lift to give a sense of scale. MORE PLEASE :-)

Nice equatorial bulge you got going on there! Spectacular scene! Fine modeling, breathtaking backdrop!

gorgeous image!

Well done!

I like the fact that the landers are so large

Fantastic work in every way.