Emitting emitters

I’d like to be able to make a nice looking firework. This is not a hard task to accomplish, just make one emitter throw out colored halos with some Damp and AccZ, then duplicate it and make it emit lamps of the same color to realistically simulate how the firework lights up the landscape.

With a real firework, each “star” (as pyros call them;)) burns and leaves a visible trail of smoke behind it, lit up from the the other stars. To do this, I need a 3rd emitter that emits emitters to trail smoke parts as each one travels outwards and falls. I’ve tried this, but the emitters don’t work:no:… any explanation/help would be appreciated.