Mystery Flash on Mauna Kea

[memv1938]

I have been working long ago on the lightning fireball phenomenon, though for observations at "human" scale, and I think that the strange spheroidal plasma recorded at Hawaii is nothing else than a very, very huge size fireball, as indicated by a rough simulation on my computer. However, going further in this simulation would need more information on the camera field of view, distance of the foreground occulting clouds, if stormy conditions were known in this direction and how far away... since I don't see a better way for estimating a representative distance of the initial path upwards... Cheers!

[tekbasse]

Move video forward to sunrise, then an hour ahead taking note of the Sun's position. Move back to the time in question, extrapolating the position of the sun.

This seems to be a kind of atmospheric aberration of the Sun, perhaps due to moisture in the mesosphere, or a rare cloud formation with a "pin hole" camera affect. Noctilucent clouds have been increasing in incidence.

[tekbasse]

I guess what I mean is, this looks like a localized halo effect... natural lens flare.

[jmwalawender]

The "event" was also captured by the all sky camera at the UH88.

http://uh22data2.ifa.hawaii.edu/public/ ... wimage.php
(scroll down and click on the night movie for June 21)

Based on the geometry there, it doesn't look like a moon glint to me. There are some thin cirrus going overhead at the time.

-Josh

[kanoa]

To make playback a little easier I posted the mp4 clip to Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/25743686

[Chris Peterson]

The "event" was also captured by the all sky camera at the UH88.

Impressive how much of the sky it covers- something hinted at, but not completely clear in the narrower field videos posted previously.

[dickerson]

is it possible that we are witness to some sort of a gamma ray burst hitting the upper atmosphere. I have never seen anything even similar to this video but if gamma ray burst is not the source then my less interesting but more likely guess is that some sort of a spotlight or oceanic searchlight hit the humidity rising from the ocean and caused a progressive halo like the one you see around the moon on a humid night. the moon halo is stationary but the effect of a non stationary light moving toward the island ( like on a boat ) may cause this sort of effect.

[Midtskogen]

A rocket sounds plausible, perhaps due to the separation of one of its stages. Compare with video/pictures taken in Norway a while ago of a Russian rock spinning out of control: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sof_QK1z4b4

[I Don't Have One]

Is it aurora particles?

[bystander]

Awesomely weird expanding halo of light seen from Hawaii
Discover Blogs | Bad Astronomy | 2011 June 29

This thread is featured in Phil's article. How cool is that?

[zekedaniels]

I attribute it to AGW of the gaps.

[Fujmon]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badas ... om-hawaii/

[Chris Peterson]

This thread is featured in Phil's article. How cool is that?

At first I thought, oh no!, because there are so many crazy ideas suggested, even cringe-worthy ones. This is what always happens with these mystery photos- the likely explanation gets homed in on quickly, and then the wild ideas keep coming for days- many of them already brought up and found lacking. So did I really want this thread on Phil's forum? But then I looked at his blog, and the attached comments, and guess what? He's got as many crazies following his writeup as we have over here. So I don't feel so bad. I guess it's just the nature of the beast.

[waapshke]

To me it the begining of the earth crust moving ...Pressure...as we know in some cases before earthquake like the one in japan ...there was someone who capture a video the night before the earthquake happened...so this is warning that earthquake is to come...In the nights to come ...we willl or should see constant flashes of light shooting straight up into the sky from where ever the pressure is....Note that this has been recorded in history where it has been carve in stone that like lighting from the ground up we see this...I believe it is energy from magnetic gravity from the ground...my english is not to well ....So I hope I shared enough for others to research the lights before other quakes that people have recorded before the earthquake did accure the next day... So again to me this is just the beginning in a series of lights to be shot up from the ground...this is what my research has brought to me...Then again I am just one person with a loving heart that wants to share in a good way...take care and may the Mystery one be with you all times...

[dunhaveone]

I think it's been said before, but I think because of the close proximity of both recordings that it is a regional atmospheric effect. Reminds me of a Moon Halo, probably caused by the clouds passing over the area, the frames seem to coincide with the timing of the clouds.

[Son of Sinton]

I'm really liking the idea that an earthquake caused this. I think that both videos show the date as June 22, not March 22 and there was an earthquake in Japan measuring 6.7 in magnitude on the same morning, however on the other side of the International Date Line. Also, this flash seems to appear in the East (East of Hawai'i, not in the East like Japan ) because you can see the stars rising.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_light

Cheers,

Son of Sinton

[Jsty]

This thread is featured in Phil's article. How cool is that?

At first I thought, oh no!, because there are so many crazy ideas suggested, even cringe-worthy ones. This is what always happens with these mystery photos- the likely explanation gets homed in on quickly, and then the wild ideas keep coming for days- many of them already brought up and found lacking. So did I really want this thread on Phil's forum? But then I looked at his blog, and the attached comments, and guess what? He's got as many crazies following his writeup as we have over here. So I don't feel so bad. I guess it's just the nature of the beast.

I know I don't post or read this forum, but when I caught this off the slashdot website, I thought, heck! As I read through, I saw the same flavor of posts you mention and had to chuckle. This morning I was reading a book about a group who corresponds through a different forum every day. Hopefully the cringe-worthy ideas are just people slow on the up-take, so to speak.

[owlice]

We've had other mystery threads on Asterisk, too... one on light pillars and another on a red glow. And then there was the mysterious streak discussion that went on for 85 (!) pages! (All of these mysteries were solved with the collective wisdom of APOD viewers. Smart bunch of folks!) And I won't even mention the one that resulted in a locked thread! (Ooooh, I see one of the others had to be locked, too. So rare around here, I'm surprised I had forgotten that!)

Exciting stuff!

[centaur]

Regarding "(note the time stamps)" the timestamps say June 22, 2011, not March. I presume the video is correct and the initial message is incorrect?

Can you help identify this phenomena? The below video shows a flash of currently unknown origin observed at Mauna Kea Observatory the morning of 2011 March 22. Here is a moving gif of it (note the time stamps):

flashsphere_kpno.gif

Here is an email that APOD received describing it:

My name is Ichi Tanaka, a Support Astrnomer of Subuaru Telescope, Hawaii.

On the early morning of 22 March we, Subaru Telescope observers on
the summit of Mauna Kea, noticed that there is a huge halo of light
above the eastern horizon. It was slowly expanding to
over 45 degrees in 5 minutes or more.

The event was captured by the Subaru Catwalk Night Camera and also by
CHFT's NNW webcam. The animated gif movie of the Subaru webcam is
attached. I also contacted Kanoa Withington in CFHT, and they
made a quite nice movie of the event. The link is below.

http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/~kanoa/ball/event.mp4

We have absolutely no idea about the nature of this. It
appears that the event happened not on the Summit area, but
much farther away, according to the comparison of the two videos.
This means that the size of the light halo is quite large.
After some discussion, we decided to send this to APOD, in the hopes
that APOD readers can help us to understand the nature of this event.

It seems to me that this is an excellent case for opportunity "Citizen Science" in that I bet the alert readers of APOD and the Asterisk can indeed figure this out. Please have at it!

- RJN

[EddyGL]

Those look to me alot like "hot pixels" in the camera itself to my eye..

It does look like an explosion/rapid de-gassing of a vehicle in low earth orbit (tho east to west orbits are quite unusual), backlit by the sun . The 8 minutes or so seen for propagation of the "wave" would seem to rule out truly violent, nuclear-bomb style, cause, as such ionizing proceeds at light speed. I'm curious why the stars move as expected in the Subaru film, but most of them (!) don't move at all in the other, higher-res CFHT, while the ground and lights there are also stable in the frame. Some few fuzzy "stars" do move upward in the right direction, but the many colored ones don't. What gives there?

[surfer51]

Micro waves of low frequency: HAARP

[chipweed]

it's too symmetrical to be a venting or large scale atmospheric phenomena, my guess is someone walking out of shot with a small flashlight and we're seeing lens flare.

No way! Gotta at least be an ALIEN with a small flashlight.

[Biorelaxator]

I think a drop of water on the lens

[owlice]

I think a drop of water on the lens

Which accounts for it being captured by more than one lens AND seen by two people standing outside looking at it?! Ah, no.

The missile makes the most sense.

[Biorelaxator]

I think a drop of water on the lens

Which accounts for it being captured by more than one lens AND seen by two people standing outside looking at it?! Ah, no.

The missile makes the most sense.

Where is the second film. Please link