Planet Photos

Ok, so here are my orrery solar system photos so far.  Note that axial tilt and planet locations are not yet accurate - I simply lined them up in a row for ease of viewing.

The Sun.  Underneath its glow, I rendered solar flares and sun spots:

Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun and smallest in our solar system.  Basically, a cratered iron ball that zooms around the Sun four times a year:

Venus.  It has always seemed wierd to me that the planet named after the Greek Goddess of Love is dotted almost entirely by massive surface volcanos and sufluric acid lightning storms.  I guess "Hell hath no fury...", ahh nvm:

The Earth and the Moon.  I added additional layers for clouds and atmosphere, so if I really wanted to I could rotate them at different rates for added realism.  Note that the Moon is one of many natural satellites that is tidally locked with Earth, meaning we always see the same side of it (I'm not sure the side currently facing it is the right side though =D ):

Mars.  Authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote entire novels about beings from Mars, likely due to the fictional canal system documented in the early 1900s.  Instead, my render shows the heavily impact cratered surface photoed by Mariner 4:

Jupiter and four of its largest moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.  I added Jupiter's ring system, which is hard to see from Earth, except for the Hubble Space Telescope:

Saturn and five of its largest moons, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan and Iapetus.  The first two moons are Inner Moons and actually are within Saturn's E-Ring, but my render only includes out through A-Ring, for ease of orrery modeling purposes.  Also, see how I attempted to convey the fact that Titan is the only moon with a dense atmosphere, comprised primarily of Nitrogen, Methane, and Hydrogen.  The other 4 are barren rocks.  Titan may also have extraterrestrial life in its oceans, just like Jupiter's Europa:

Uranus and four of its largest moons, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon.  Note how all of Uranus' moons are named after Shakespearean characters.  Also, note that this is an unrealistic viewpoint for Uranus, whose rings appear near vertical with respect to the ecliptic when seen from Earth:

Neptune and its largest moon, Triton.  I couldn't find any texture maps for the ring system, so I made my own, where you can make out Neptune's three main rings:

Each of the planets and moons in my orrery design is rendered in full detail for close ups.  For example, see this zoom in on Ganymede:

The next step is to put the planets and moons in their actual present locations, and also add correct lighting and shadows to demonstrate eclipses.