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APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:06 am
by APOD Robot
A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite
Explanation: There is something very unusual in this picture of the Earth -- can you find it? A fleeting phenomenon once thought to be only a legend has been newly caught if you know just where to look. The
above image was taken from the orbiting
International Space Station (ISS) in late April and shows familiar ISS solar panels on the far left and part of a robotic arm to the far right. The rarely imaged phenomenon is known as a
red sprite and it
can be seen, albeit faintly, just over the bright area on the image right. This bright area and the
red sprite are different types of lightning, with the white flash the more typical type. Although
sprites have been reported
anecdotally for as long as 300 years, they were first caught on film in 1989 -- by accident. Much remains unknown about
sprites including how they occur, their effect on the atmospheric
global electric circuit, and if they are somehow related to other
upper atmospheric lightning phenomena such as
blue jets or
terrestrial gamma flashes.
[/b]
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:18 am
by bystander
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:41 am
by Beyond
The last
Sprite i saw many years ago, showed up a lot better than the
sprite in today's photo, and tasted good also. I just don't usually see much of any kind of sprites.
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 9:14 am
by Beluga
Does anybody know if it is possible to see any of those upper atmosphere lightning phenomena with the naked eye?
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 11:43 am
by Tszabeau
Beluga wrote:Does anybody know if it is possible to see any of those upper atmosphere lightning phenomena with the naked eye?
Only from surmising that they were first reported 200 years ago, before photography, that someone spotted them with only their eyesight.
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 11:48 am
by starsurfer
Tszabeau wrote:Beluga wrote:Does anybody know if it is possible to see any of those upper atmosphere lightning phenomena with the naked eye?
Only from surmising that they were first reported 200 years ago, before photography, that someone spotted them with only their eyesight.
They might have been observed telescopically although this seems unlikely considering the poor optical quality of early telescopes (in comparison to modern telescopes).
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 12:13 pm
by orin stepanek
Anecdotally?
Love it!
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 12:35 pm
by emc
I’d say by the look of the kitty’s fur, she just saw her first Sprite! And the dog doesn’t appear to believe what the kitty is telling him. He’s probably thinking, “How do I respond to this?” (I assume the dog is a “him” and the kitty is a “her” as I am projecting human characteristics). Females always seem to have something to tell us!
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 1:50 pm
by FloridaMike
emc wrote:I’d say by the look of the kitty’s fur, she just saw her first Sprite! And the dog doesn’t appear to believe what the kitty is telling him. He’s probably thinking, “How do I respond to this?” (I assume the dog is a “him” and the kitty is a “her” as I am projecting human characteristics). Females always seem to have something to tell us!
Waaaaayyy off topic here..... It is my observation that many people associate Dogs with male and Cats with female. My guess is this is because we learn the differences between cats and dogs before we learn the differences between male and female. The binary categories of cat / dog get mapped to the binary categories of male / female.
resume.Astrophysics
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 1:52 pm
by JMC
WHERE ON EARTH IS THIS PHOTO
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 2:18 pm
by bystander
Cherry Sprite
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 2:23 pm
by neufer
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:33 pm
by orin stepanek
oops; Read previous post wrong so I took it off!
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:59 pm
by StarCuriousAero
Have we ever caught an elf on camera? Image or video...? They sound amazing.
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:27 am
by Thomas Ashcraft
StarCuriousAero wrote:Have we ever caught an elf on camera? Image or video...? They sound amazing.
Hi. I captured an elve, actually a more powerful "donut elve", which was generated by a mega-lightning stroke. I was also fortunate enough to witness this event naked-eye which was like a super strong flash bulb flash above the horizon. I did not see any detail in the elve or the sprite cluster below it, rather just the wide flash which was captured on one frame of 30 frame per second video and also on my full spectrum modified dslr. ( With radio emissions, too.)
http://www.heliotown.com/Sprite_May_31_ ... 115UT.html
Some other specimens here:
http://www.heliotown.com/Transient_Lumi ... _2012.html
Clear skies,
Thomas Ashcraft in New Mexico
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 5:04 pm
by Coyne
It looks to me like there is a second, separated and dimmer, sprite about three widths of the first to the right and slightly above.
It's possible it's an optical ghost but I don't think so: Looking for similar ghosts of other lights in the frame didn't reveal anything.
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 6:02 pm
by Beyond
orin stepanek wrote:oops; Read previous post wrong so I took it off!
Orin, there's a delete button for that, so you don't have to do all that eraseing and then type an explanation. When you delete it quickly, no one knows that you did an oops. No muss, no fuss, no bother.
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 9:13 pm
by orin stepanek
Beyond wrote:orin stepanek wrote:oops; Read previous post wrong so I took it off!
Orin, there's a delete button for that, so you don't have to do all that eraseing and then type an explanation. When you delete it quickly, no one knows that you did an oops. No muss, no fuss, no bother.
'Twas a day old and there were posts after mine -- so there wasn't any delete button available!
I was lucky to still be able to edit it out!
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 2:21 am
by Beyond
Yeah, the day-old thing. That's when you call on an administrator. Their erasers don't have a time limit.
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 12:43 pm
by Moonlady
Beyond wrote:Yeah, the day-old thing. That's when you call on an administrator. Their erasers don't have a time limit.
Beyond....don't spoil our fun...I'd rather like to read what he posted in the first place
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 12:50 pm
by Moonlady
Thomas Ashcraft wrote:StarCuriousAero wrote:Have we ever caught an elf on camera? Image or video...? They sound amazing.
Hi. I captured an elve, actually a more powerful "donut elve", which was generated by a mega-lightning stroke. I was also fortunate enough to witness this event naked-eye which was like a super strong flash bulb flash above the horizon. I did not see any detail in the elve or the sprite cluster below it, rather just the wide flash which was captured on one frame of 30 frame per second video and also on my full spectrum modified dslr. ( With radio emissions, too.)
http://www.heliotown.com/Sprite_May_31_ ... 115UT.html
Some other specimens here:
http://www.heliotown.com/Transient_Lumi ... _2012.html
Clear skies,
Thomas Ashcraft in New Mexico
Wow! A cluster of sprites! The video is amazing, I would have missed the sprite cluster when it was not slow motion! Are you only researching sprites? A sprite specialist?
Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)
Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 3:11 pm
by Thomas Ashcraft
Moonlady wrote:
Wow! A cluster of sprites! The video is amazing, I would have missed the sprite cluster when it was not slow motion! Are you only researching sprites? A sprite specialist?
Hi. Thanks for looking. Yes, I am observing sprites intensively presently. They are thrilling to capture. Clear skies, Thomas
