Just watched the shuttle take off from my front yard in Ft Lauderdale, about 300 miles from the Cape. Good view through 10x50 binoculars, through scattered clouds and high altitude haze. Orange-red flickering exhaust from the solid fuel boosters was visible, about 1/2 degree long even with the naked eye, and booster separation was clearly visible. This trajectory seemed to angle further to the north than other launches I've seen here, and it didn't get quite as high in the sky. The main engines looked just like a first mag star as it disappeared behind the streetlights to the NW. It never gets old.