I don't know if this would be any help, but here is a link to a lightwave tutorial on creating a starfield. It might at least give some ideas....

http://www.ap3d.com/betterspace/betterspace-tut-00.htm

I have done his entire series on this site with Lightwave and it looks awesome (even the nebulas using Photoshop).

Would there be a way to duplicate this process in Maya somehow??

Good luck,

-Hidalgo
;)

I've seen that site before but you can't really kill polys in Maya the way they suggest for LW. There are different methods to the madness, though.