A few days back I posted a picture of the recent shuttle launch. Here's another view:
![i-9e5d2cf73835411e3831eea4af08bd15-480_DiscoveryOrion_aurigema_c720[5].jpg](http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/wp-content/blogs.dir/280/files/2012/04/i-9e5d2cf73835411e3831eea4af08bd15-480_DiscoveryOrion_aurigema_c720[5].jpg)
This is a four minute time exposure of the exhaust plume along Discovery's path against the background of the starry sky. As APOD notes:
At the upper left, the end of the drifting plume is punctuated by Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka in a vertical line, the belt stars of Orion. To the right of the belt stars, the pinkish jewel in Orion's sword is not a star at all, but the great Orion Nebula. Still farther to the right, at the foot of the hunter, lies Rigel, the brightest star in view. Rigel is a hot supergiant star some 700 light-years in the distance.
Visit Astronomy Picture of the Day for the larger version of this picture.
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Back in the dark ages (= early 1960s) I spent a couple of years at the Cape playing with Polaris. Night launches of the big liquid-fueled vehicles -- early Saturns, for example -- were amazing sights, particularly on the occasions when the range safety officer pushed the destruct button when an errant bird was just a few miles downrange. IIRC, the first Saturns were clustered kerosene and LOX engines, and they made spectacular fireworks when all that fuel blew at once.