International Space Station: zooms overhead

Over the last few evenings the International Space Station (ISS) has been particularly visible in the skies above the northwest UK where I live.
I couldn't help but have a dabble at photographing it as it zoomed overhead at 17,000 MPH!



Taken just after sunset, in this 15 second exposure you can clearly see the light streak left by the ISS which is actually sunlight reflected off the craft's structure. The west, where the sun sets and ISS appears to begin its transit of the night sky, is to the right of the image hence the slightly lighter sky. The orangey tint to the lower left of the image is light pollution from the inevitable nearby street lights of suburbia.

In order to capture as much of the starry background as possible I used a very wide angle lens, the lower edge of the image is just above my horizon and the top of the image is almost directly overhead (the pole star being just out of frame). At around 200 miles away (at it's closest) the space station is by far the most distant and fastest moving subject I have ever photographed. I'm no astronomer but above the streak you can see a small cluster of stars, this is Pleiades and below, left you can see the much larger Orion constellation.