The International Space Station

I have long had a fascination for the night sky and regularly watch Stargazing Live with Professor Brian Cox each year.  This season, one programme featured the International Space Station and had on as a guest the recently returned commander.  I was gripped by this and immediately accessed the ISS website and downloaded the ISS Tracker smartphone app.  Armed with these tools I have been watching it pass over on clear evenings knowing precisely what time to be out and where to look.  In fact on one evening recently I watched two passes while at our local and had half the pub out with us.  I am always impressed by how clear and how close it seems to be.  it approaches from the west and, at first appears to be a star getting brighter until it travels quickly overhead brighter than any planet.  I find it amazing that there are 6 people on bopard and it is travelling at 17000 mph!!!  It orbits in just over one and a half hours.  Thinking that one evening I would photograph it I was galvanised into action last night when my son told me we only had a few nights left for this current session of visible orbits.  I used my wide angle zoom lens at 10mm and, after a few trial exposures set the camera to 400 ISO 30 sec @f11, using continuous to ensure that I captured it in the best position.

To view large click on the image.

For some reason Blogger has not reproduced the image very well.  It can be seen at better quality on my Flickr site at https://www.flickr.com/photos/13655446@N05/with/13914938915#