If you planar project or camera project the image of a planet or moon onto a sphere, you can push in and get 10 or 20 degrees of rotation out of it before you hit a seam.
In the version above I threw in some bump mapping.
This may seem simple or obvious, but it can be very effective. I used this technique for all the Moons and Earths in Independence Day (ID4) - even the oblique Earth views with dramatic cloud formations in the foreground. In a movie you don't always have to solve the general case (a full CG Earth viewable from all angles) - you just need to solve the problems actually posed by the shots and camera angles in the film.
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