Hi everyone, thanks for reading.

I'm doing a space scene with some ships, asteroids, maybe a planet or two - and I need a background.

From the book Learning Maya 5 - Foundation (a pretty good read if I may recommend) I've learned how to paint scenes with the great cosmos, galaxy, and star brushes Maya has.

So I started by painting a background, saving as an image, then mapping onto a plane to use as my background.

This looks great for rendering, but since I plan to have some dynamic camera movements, a flat 2D backdrop is not sufficient.

So I tried placing my 2D painted image on the inside of a Sphere, which looks a little better. It has a couple problems though, such as the top and bottom (north and south poles) being pinched.

Namely though, the whole thing seems to have lost its sense of depth. Since the image has been so stretched to cover the sphere surface, it's sharpness and artistic appeal is lost. And, as the camera moves, all the stars/planets move against it at the same pace. Maybe this is right, but somehow as an old Star Trek and Wing Commander fan, I feel the stars shouldn't be moving all together.

Any ideas on how I could make this look more correct/beautiful?
Maybe if I used a combination of the backdrop and some "real" sphere stars/planets?

Thanks in advance everyone - you're the best.