[JAVA3D] How to make stars in Java 3D?

[Michael P. McCutcheon]

I've been looking at various demos, like GLExcess:   http://www.glexcess.com/   Notice that in the demo there are many objects which resemble stars and suns.  These are close up and bright...some of them even fade the whole screen to while.    The thing I don't get is how do they do that?   The closest thing to a star I've been able to make is illuminated spheres with an incresing transparency level as they get bigger...this sort of looks like a star but is TERRIBLY inefficient, and looks nothing like the bright, smoothly faded stars in that demo above (note particularly the star in the part where all the cubes are surrounding it)   How in the world do they make those bright, smoothly faded flickering stars?  It seems that you can't do this with just transparent spheres...any ideas or code samples?  I want to write a space game and making stars like this is essential.   Thanks for any advice...   Michael P. McCutcheon