I might have missed seeing the launch of a space shuttle but I got to see it on the pad. Because it was on standby for the previous shuttle mission to the Hubble telescope it was on the launch pad that is farther away than the normal pad they use. It was a hot and hazy afternoon so the image is not as sharpe as I wanted. It is almost four miles away. Taken with a Canon 50D, with a Canon 400mm L lens f/4.0, with a Canon 2X extender. Effective focal length was a little over 1200 mm when to take into effect of the 1.6 crop factor of the APS-C sensor of the Canon 50D. f/11 @ 1/180 sec. ISO 100 and on a tripod with remote release.