This has to be my longest ever hand held shot, albeit with a "stabilised" lens, and me leaning back with my shoulder, head, and one elbow against a wall. There's a wee bit of camera shake noticeable in the full sized version, and a fair bit of noise has been removed... along with detail.

Had I hauled out the tripod, and used a more favourable settings for quality (lower ISO, smaller aperture, and longer exposure), the results would be very different. The longer exposure required would have resulted in the clouds being blurred (they were moving rapidly), and the stars would have appeared to have moved. In a 30 second exposure, our planet will have rotated enough to make a difference! A wider angle lens will lessen the visible effect, whereas a telephoto lens will make this more apparent.

Other information: The orange glow is from sodium vapour streetlights; that bright thing is the moon (...in case that wasn't obvious!); and the bright dot on the far right is Jupiter (according to this site... I had to check!).