Lightning Sprites

[cometcatcher]

These pics are over a year old but I thought I'd put them up anyway as it's quite rare to observe them.

The vertical carrot like features in these frames from my Mintron video camera are Red Sprites. Sprites are associated with lightning and occur in the upper atmosphere. You may remember video from one of the Shuttle missions.

At first I thought these things in my frames were lens flare but the carrot like shapes in the last 2 frames helped identify them.

Sprites are best observed above a distant severe storm where from the observers point of view the sky is clear.

I never saw them with the naked eye, only captured them on a few video frames after a lightning flash.

Anyone else seen or photographed anything strange during a storm?

[h0ughy]

wow, never seen anything like that before :2thumbs:

[fringe_dweller]

I second that wow! Did you see the series on mega-lightning on foxtel? They had some great video/shots of sprites - particularly the ones taken from Taiwan, awesome! They say they can tower up to 15 klm into space! weird how they werent truely discovered/acknowledged till the 1980's 90's???? although airline/airforce pilots had always insisted they existed I think. Have you ever seen any naked eye at all?
I also like the phenomenom of ball lightning - which i believe Victoria/Melbourne is the capitol of in Oz - i have friend who saw one in melbourne when he was a kid - it travelled through his house and down the hallway very slowly - i have heard a few first hand accounts of ball lightning from people who lived in Vic - any one out there got a ball lightning story? They are reputed to act as if they have there own intelligence!!???
Cheers
Kearn

[cometcatcher]

Nope, never seen the Sprites with naked eye. My vidcam is extra red sensitive too which probably made it easier for it to pick up. At the same time I cad a "normal" colour camera running and it didn't pick them up either.

My mother and aunt told me stories of ball lightning when they were kids out near Finch Hatton. They reckon these orange plasma balls would run along the railway lines when they came out of school on stormy afternoons. Apparently it was a common sight for them, but I've never seen anything like that.

[RAJAH235]

Never seen them naked, but I do remember the Astronauts filming them years ago. Looked really spectacular from space. 'For every action...............', eh! :D L.

[fringe_dweller]

Sorry, did a little google on sprites and they actually can go much higher into space than i wrote! that show did say they went to the edge of space as well.
Apparently they are very faint the webpages said, to see visually (as you know), the normal bright lightning associated with the sprites can ruin your night vision temporarily it says, long enough to ruin the sprites anyway (from a distant thunderstorm edge-on). but as you say the normal camera didnt pick up anything - very bright sprites seem to be much rarer?.
My grandfather saw the min-min lights from outback qld, a few times, thats quite different to ball lightning i would think?. there is a good webpage maybe? explaining these lights in that part of the world http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s818193.htm But he said one time a pair were following the road coming towards him at night, he thought they were just oncoming truck headlights of course, after a while, when just as they got close, they started to diverge and swapping positions as if it was a truck crashing and rolling, but then suddenly went of the road as a pair off into the bush and dissappeared. he stopped there was no crashed vehicle, just the lights dissappearing into the bush.
Kearn

[ballaratdragons]

Ball lightening does seem popular in Victoria.

I have never seen it myself but about 5 years ago a lady in Ballarat told me a ball of light entered their Caravan in a Ballarat Caravan park through the fly screen door, jumped about for about 3 seconds at extremely high speed and then exited back out through the fly screen door! Her and her daughter freaked when they saw it.

There was one near here in the paper a couple of years back when a ball of lightening flew rapidly at a farmer circled near him and them broke into two. One peice went into the ground and the other shot behind his house and dissappeared. (insert 'Twilight Zone' music here)

[fringe_dweller]

We met Ern Mainka, completely by chance, at the total solar eclipse in the sa outback, he parked right next to us in fact on the Stuart highway, and we got chatting and told us about ball lightning, he showed us a photo album/porfolio including the pics of ball lightning had just recently obtained. He was a very genuine bloke and I believe him completely (and a b-l-o-o-d-y good photographer!). Here is his page with his pics from Victoria, the only known pics from Vic (i think) and at that time only one of 5 amateur shots in the world (I think?).
http://www.ernmphotography.com/Pages/Ball_Lightning/Ball_Lightning_ErnM.html
Kearn
EDIT: hey my first b l o o d y got erased in my first post - so i did it again hehe :evil: is this censorship? i hope that words not flagged too?

[cometcatcher]

Hehheh, VB's inbuilt profanity filter at work.

Interesting ball lightning page.

There are other lightning effects too such as elves, blue jets, trolls? and um.. can't remember the rest.

Probably not many photos around cos many people are hiding under the bed instead of trying to photograph them. :D

[fringe_dweller]

Hi Kevin, yes on that show they said there was a whole "zoo" of phenomena associated with lightning :)

I wouldnt of thought the (b l o o d y) word was a serious swear word?? - i mean is damn banned too (this will test it) they should give us a list of the banned words :rofl: LOL! I have heard a few PM's say b l o o d y on tv???!!

I have to make a correction - I stuffed up my poor old grandads min min lights story!! :ashamed: about an hour after I typed it I remembered it properly!!! arrgg, well it has been more than 20 years since I have heard it - so just for the record - it will bother me if I dont correct it - I know it probably doesnt matter anyway, and sorry if it bores anyone.

He was driving on one of those lonely highways near Winton at night and he noticed what he thought were truck lights following him at a distance, in his rear view mirror (i had the story in reverse!!). This went on for some time, eventually he decided to slow down and let them pass, but the head lights would just slow down with him and stay at the same distance behind, wether he sped up or slowed down. Eventually (somehow? cant remember this bit properly) they caught up and he thought they were overtaking, but just as they got close the headlights converged and tumbled as if the truck was crashing and rolling right behind him. Then I think in fact they went over the top of his vehicle and then dissappeared into the bush. ahh feel better now - again so sorry!! and sorry to hijack your thread Kevin!
Cheers
Kearn

[cometcatcher]

That's alright, I love to hear those "balls of light" stories. Some of the balls of light almost seem to posses an intelligence of sorts.

I've had a few people tell me similar stories. It's a good idea to take a spare camera to put in the glove box of the car, just in case. :)

[Astroman]

Nice thread guys good to see some people interested in strange things other than myself. My friend had a story of Ball lightning, his neighbour has had it go through her house, went through the house and then hit the back door making a pop sound and made a slight mark on the door. I was a bit skeptical of the story but the lady was 80yrs old and I doubt she was after fame and fortune over the event. Quite interesting as it sounds I was there investigating a lightning strike which hit near her Fence. The Ball lightning had happened about 15yrs earlier though.

Another oddity is running lights through in the ocean. A couple of times my Wife and I had been at Semaphore Beach here in Adelaide watching storms off in the distance and we had noticed strange lights running through the water about 50m off shore. The lights moved very quickly and looked like they were underwater. Moving left and right and right and left, very strange.

[fringe_dweller]

Ken and Andrew thanks for excellent stories :) Andrew i have never heard of the running lights of Semaphore, are they well known and documented? Ken love your red writing in your tag - i am waiting for that novel - is it going to be like 'War and Peace' in size?
Kearn

[Astroman]

Hi Kearn,

I am not sure if they have been documented, I may see if I can turn something up on it.

[Mick]

Congratulations Kevin, I see your sprites photo made it to SpaceWeather.com

http://www.spaceweather.com/index.cgi
http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/06dec05/parker1.jpg

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Mick!

Struth! I just opened my mail and I'm getting all sorts of emails, from Nasa to physics professors to Nigerian spam! I even got spam in French Lol!

Oh well that's my 5 minutes of fame.

[fringe_dweller]

onya mate :prey2: :prey2: how good is that eh!! did you submit that or did they approach you? seems a bit after the fact thats all - either way I am seriously impressed - but wheres the awesome vid!?
remember folks! you saw it first here on channel IIS!
PS I am getting spam in chinese these days!

[gaa_ian]

Onya Kevin, Its good to see so many Aussies featuring on Universe today.
With the Wet Season & its associated storms almost upon us I will have to look out for these sprites.
I have worked out near Winton, and have even been out with a few mates on a one of the escarpments to look for Min-Min lights, but never saw any !
Others in the mining camp we were in had seen them though, so thats why we went looking.

[cometcatcher]

Thanks guys. A small video is at post #16 in the other thread http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=5720 The full video is over 300Mb. I might convert it to DVD format sometime.

I submitted the pics shortly after they were taken but the site took over a week to put them up. I guess he has quite a backlog of submitted pictures to get through.

I'd love to see/photograph min min lights, ball lightning or anything of that nature. Fascinating stuff.

[iceman]

Congrats Kevin! Well deserved!

[cometcatcher]

It's sprite night! Just caught a couple on the main PC. Might have pics later tonight to show. The full moon isn't helping but I'm using a red filter to try and block it a bit.

[cometcatcher]

Storm was 200km away this time, a bit far off, the moon was 99% and the sky smokey. Still, I got a few faint ones.

Mintron video camera, frame integration 128x (2.5 seconds per frame), 25A red filter, 8mm f1.3 lens.

[Astroman]

Awesome stuff Kevin. Thats just brilliant.

[avandonk]

Amazing captures Kevin.What direction and at what time were these captured? Just trying to get an idea of their brightness or lack of by comparing to other objects in sky (stars and nebula). Could you indicate a constellation or two.
Thanks for showing these.

Bert

[cometcatcher]

Thanks guys.

I'll see what I can do Bert. By comparison to stars the sprites look bright, but remember my camera is red sensitive to start with and even more so with the red filter.

Here's a pretty close approximation to a sky chart.

By coincidence the sprite in this pic is very close to the Eta Carina nebula.

[h0ughy]

that is mind blowing. Awesome shots, congaratulations.

[avandonk]

Thanks Kevin just wanted to get an idea of how difficult these objects are to capture. Looks like you have it down to a fine art.


Bert

[gaa_ian]

Good on you Kevin !
Do you just wait till you can see distant lightning ?
or do you check the local weather radar etc ?

[venus]

congrats amazing pics there Kevin, I've read somewhere that on board the ISS the astronauts have also captured images of this interesting phenomena.

Going back to the fire-ball, I once had a dream that one flew in through my lounge window and all around the room and then out through the window agian.
It was a dream you never forget like the flying ones.

[CometGuy]

A storm 200km NE of me this night produced some spectacular sprites. 2 I witnessed were amazing with the naked eye extending 20 degrees vertically and looking like bright auroral rays/search light beams. They would have been obvious to the naked eye even for a non-astronomer. Unfortunately I did not capture this with the camera (it was point too far have the camera pointed in the correct direction). Having repointed the camera I was still able to capture quite a bright sprite from the same storm (attached). I am currently uploading some more picks at the following gallery:

http://www.pbase.com/terrylovejoy/sprite__dec_17_2005

[venus]

that's a great capture there in "Sprite Above Thunderstorm - 7:28pm"

[CometGuy]

Attached is just the red channel enhanced. Note this was a 10 sec exposure made with my modified 300D + 28mm f2.8 lens + ISO1600.

Terry

[gaa_ian]

The shots on your site are great Terry.
Especially with Orion above !

[CometGuy]

Thanks Ian,

I am regretting not having the camera pointing at the bright sprites I saw. They would have looked amazing and being much larger and brighter than the ones shown here.

Terry

[venus]

The sprites have some funny names :) ........




sprites (http://www.physicstoday.org/pt/vol-54/iss-11/captions/p41cap4.html)

[cometcatcher]

Both. Unfortunately my entire view to the west and NW is blocked by trees and power lines so the only directions available to me are south through to NE.

Good colour shots Terry. When you say modified 300D do you mean with a different IR filter inline or removed completely?

[CometGuy]

Kevin,

Modified with a Baader UVIR cut filter so the cutoff is 700nm. As I understand Sprites emit strongly in the 660-680 nm + 760nm range. Clear glass would would be the best option for a DSLR as this would allow the 760nm light to be detected, although colour balance would be stuffed as the green and blue pixels are mildly sensitive to this wavelength.

Next time I'll pay more attention to radar as initially I was pointing above a nearer/weaker storm.

Terry