I've noticed I can have two models around the same size and have the albedo set to the same but from a distance only one may show up as a dot while the other is not visible. Keep in mind these objects are not placed right next to each other so they are not blending into one dot from a distance.
I can't tell if this is a bug in celestia or a problem with my text editor.
EDIT:
Never mind I found the problem. Turns out any object that didn't show up as a dot from a distance had this line in the ssc file. "Color [0 0 0]"
Not sure why that line was in those files but removing it fixed the problem.