If this is your first attempts with the program all I can say is wow, keep it up. This is a nice crisp clean image and all in all great piece of artwork. Well done.
Another one who's new to Vue -- snap! I like the colours and shine in this, and the floating sphere is well observed -- sits on the water like a beachball.
Very late to the party here... I don't know anything about vue (only old versions of Bryce) but my comment would be that it looks rather flat/unrealistic where the sphere meets he water. Perhaps you could have used a very subtle torus to suggest water tension.
One of my earliest renders - not likely to be too realistic! I'm working through Vue 7 From the Ground Up, so I'll figure out how to do things like that.