Blue Jets - Atmospehric Lightning

CDANVERS (Craig) · #1 12-02-2013, 12:59 PM

I was dancing like an idiot by myself out in the dark last night. I went down to the cliffs to see what all the flashes were about from my house.

A nice big, massive, huge monster storm was rolling along. I setup camera to grab some pics, but the storm was quite far away and the main cloud of the storm was blocking the lightning bolts. Most of my pics look like nuclear bomb explosions. But only after a few snaps into the session, I saw the impressive heavenly shots of blue shot into the sky when there was no lightning.

I'd seen clips of sprites and the likes on the net, so I knew it was some type of atmospheric discharge, not sure what type tho.

So seeing my storm shots werent what I was hoping, I tried to catch one of these beauty's.

Set the camera to 6400iso f2.8 and shortened the exposure time to 4secs, hoping to catch the Blue Jet without any lightning. I saw a couple while trying this and raced home to see what I got.

Well, im not a scientist, but I did catch something. http://www.flickr.com/photos/craigdanvers/8467078944/

This is a composite of two shots, one before the sprite showing lightning illuminating the storm and then the sprite.
http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-9n...site2-9579.jpg

I'll have to repost the photos when i get back home with proper color balance to them, but they were def blue.

What do you think? I couldnt find much about them or many pics to compare, I thought sprites, but the conditions seem to indicate blue jets.

Craig

CDANVERS (Craig) · #2 12-02-2013, 01:04 PM

Sorry, Im not having much luck getting pictures into my post.

colinmlegg (Colin) · #3 12-02-2013, 02:22 PM

Good catch! It sure looks like a Sprite. I got one in the Chilean Andes a couple of years ago with similar shape and colour, although mine was more red.

MrB (Simon) · #4 13-02-2013, 02:38 AM

Looks good to me, well done Craig!

CapturingTheNight (Greg) · #5 13-02-2013, 07:05 AM

Great catch Craig

SkyViking (Rolf) · #6 13-02-2013, 10:04 AM

Wow lucky you, that's a great and rare catch for sure.

Octane (Humayun) · #7 13-02-2013, 12:49 PM

That is very, very cool!

Hope I can catch these on one of my chases one of these days.

H

CDANVERS (Craig) · #8 14-02-2013, 03:31 PM

There are a couple of people researching sprites and the kind and I have sent them the raw images to look at, I will let you all know what they say.

Im hoping for some more storms now, I want to go and and see them again.

prokyon (Werner Probst) · #9 15-02-2013, 11:16 AM

Wow, awesome! I am still dreaming of capturing something like that.

astronobob (Bob) · #10 18-02-2013, 11:42 PM

Wow, that is looking pretty incredible Craig, Ive seen some people claiming they have captured sprites but not really knowing better, , But this is looking very much Like a Blue Jet or Sprite to me, It is high enough in the atmosphere, its not connected to the storm below and it is a fat blurring light , All three Make it a Sprite in my books ! Be interesting to find out which one for sure ? ? Looks a little to fat to be a blue jet but I guess they can come in different sizes ? ?

Well Done all the same Graig

Steffen · #11 19-02-2013, 01:21 AM

Wow, is that the kind of storm that produces anti-matter?

Cheers
Steffen.

gaa_ian (Ian) · #12 19-02-2013, 01:47 AM

Well done Craig ! As a fellow resident of NE Arnhem Land, I look forward to catching up with you sometime soon :-)
I would love for you to come along for one of the observing nights of Gove Ameteur Astronomers sometime.

CDANVERS (Craig) · #13 19-03-2013, 03:12 PM

Still waiting to hear back on the images from the people who have more knowledge on the matter, so I'll think I call it atmospheric lightning till I know more. Either way Im stoked about the capture.

Thanks for all the comments everyone!!

Ian, I'd definitely love to come over for an observing night, I'll try see if I can jump on a charter for a trip.

I'll update any new findings when I hear more.

CDANVERS (Craig) · #14 19-03-2013, 03:24 PM

Try to get a photo up in the thread to save everyone from chasing links.

This is the composite of the frame that caught the atmos lightning and the previous frame combined. I have had to raise levels a lot to bring out the sprite/jet as it was super fast and quite faint.

The cloud at the bottom of the atmos lightning was closer to me than the storm so I believe it is cutting off the bottom of the atmos lightning.

My assumptions that it was a blue jet was based on how I saw them with my eyes, they were very blue and shot out from the top of the storm in a narrow fan shape.

Well, hope to hear back about some findings soon.

Thanks everyone, Iceinspace is such a great community, I wish I wasnt so remote sometimes so I could get to more events and network. Oh well, I'll try and be more active with my images here atleast.

http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-9n...site2-9579.jpg

Fingers crossed the image works this time, it does in the preview post atleast.

CDANVERS (Craig) · #15 21-03-2013, 12:49 PM

Finally paid attention to the attachments window below and have got it figured out to post images without having to use links. So the images will show up in the thread.

A quick update on the research of the images,

"We have been trying to find some corroborating data from one of several global radio signal networks that might give us some clues about the nature of the event.

Given that we have not been able to find a signal actually strengthens the case that this was a blue jet, as we believe they tend to be "radio quiet."

The images are, a composite of the capture frame and previous frame showing location in regards to storm.