I am trying to make an Earth scence (I know it has been done a thousand times before) but im having a few problems.

1) Creating a night side, I saw fredriksson's node setup but din't quite understand it. Also, I have animated the Earth rotating .... just wondering if this will make it harder to make a night side

2) Sooner or later im going to have a moon orbating the Earth, I want it to come from the dark into the light. The problem is that even when it is behind the Earth it still looks too bright. Not sure why the Earth isn't creating a good enough shadow.

3) Do you think I need an atmosphere, im not sure. I don't know if you would see the atmosphere so far away .... what do you gys think?

_LIVID