Hi all!
This is an image that I did, originally with the intention of using it on a larger project. That idea was later scrapped but I kept improving this image.
I tried to use real world measures whenver possible (despite reducing them proportionally), except when that would make the object way to small (the Hubble would be really tiny...) and used lot's of amazing images from NASA Blue Marble project
Also invaluable was the blog from Sie Piau Project Eden
The basic approach on this is... make some spheres, change the size of the new ones by a small increment and apply a different texture to it! I did my own basic displacement and texture shaders, rendered out different takes and comped them. The Hubble is just modelling... got a pretty huge (15 MB) blueprint with side and front facing images and went into crazy mode detailing stuff because I wanted to do (and did) a model turnetable.
The shadow you see over the Hubble is of a gigantic space object approaching Earth and by its sheer size obscuring the Hubble... or that was the concept, I mean!
Big big thanks to Perry Yap for the help on some Nuke tweaks and general black magic that made the image look so much better than my initial comp!