Red Sprites

[aquamarinedream]

is this real time or slowed down?

[TheKimTwister]

ok what are those blinking lights that look like airplanes

[TheKimTwister]

shooting star at 217 min

[tritanopia]

YouTube is being its usual glitchy self. I can't watch this video. It won't start playing.

[somprsn2525]

You shot this your self? Thats incredible!

Hey are these sprites and jets visible to the naked eye?

[softball18shawty]

you've also got a really nice meteor at the top of the screen at 2:17

[aquamarinedream]

were can you seen sprites? so you have to be at a certain elevation above or under the thunder storm to see them? And is it any place where a thunder storms hits?

[aquamarinedream]

at 2:16 at the top middle is that a meteorite?

[leofer1976]

It's amazing...

[TheNightracer]

hmmm arent sprites the ones who unleash positive lightning?

[Moosup44]

So it is actually possible to see jets from the surface level? Thanks for sharing.

[WoodlandRavah]

Yeah I live in the rockies and when theres a big storm out on kansas you can just barely make them out when there's lightning...

[Gesthrel]

Great Vid, Thanks for the upload.

Awesome.

[gdmcgill]

shooting star 2:16

[HerrBenji]

Great vision mate.

[mazman3434]

if only it was in color

[VirtRampage]

see a dumb person would say those are aliens

[shawty546]

there aliens!!!! AHH!

[Boztalay]

they're

[saintaureus]

It's easy to misidentify unfamiliar atmospheric phenomena like this, so you don't have to be dumb. Just ignorant.

[blahdob]

or imaginitive

[iglotz123]

its chuck norris :/

[killerfly1965]

or Rick Roll.

lol.

Stay down!!!!!

[Tomkat53]

Can these be seen with the naked eye?

[CricketboyStudios]

Yes, but rare.

[sslavi]

"We're sorry, this video is no longer available." >:(

[JayZoop]

My dad swear he saw a UFO because of a bright like that was there for 1/4 second. I wonder if it was a sprite.

[RedRainWater]

this is cool stuff!!!

[frizspin175]

cool, they are shaped kinda like aurora

[Serraxor]

Nice! at 2:16 you captured a meteor!

[KellyKelly008]

I'm No Researcher On Sprites But So Far I'm Upto 1:39 And I've Seen 13 Blue Jets...

[venomcha0s]

Not blue jets. All of them look to be sprites of different varieties and types.

[sweetpea914]

I also worked at this facility during the summer of 2003 and I agree...there are no blue jets in this video. However the sprites are very pretty :) It's nice to get back into thinking about all the TLE's out there. For wxchaser03...tell your boss man that Katie from 2003 says hello!!!

[DsnyLaura33]

Wow, what a great event..I worked at a research facility for 2 years working strictly on these events...I do think that the blue jet could possibly be a c sprite though.

[wxchaser03]

by chance where did you work researching sprite producing storms and who was your lead researcher.

[DsnyLaura33]

It was at a lab in Ft.Collins, CO...Walt Lyons was the researcher...pretty famous guy for sprites :)

[wxchaser03]

ah yes Yucca Ridge, I thought I might now you. I work there right now. I believe that you graduated the year before I transfered into the major.

[wxchaser03]

since you are familiar with TLE's, do you think that this video has a blue jet in it. Look at some previous replies for the exact time and look right above tree line. I beleive that it is a far away carrot sprite.

[DsnyLaura33]

I agree, I believe with 99.9% of all my work with TLE's that this is not a blue jet...With this type of recording they would be next to impossible to see anyway.BTW...who are you? haha

[wxchaser03]

I agree. My name is Jon president of UNC's AMS currently. Glad to see that youve kept up with sprite stuff. Did you continue on with grad school or get a job.

[sugarpuddin88]

Erie!

Shooting star in there too!

I wonder how it would look using FLIR

[Eastview605]

Sugar, you said "I wonder how it would look using FLIR?" Good question. No one has looked in the infrared, but my guess is you wouldn't see anything with a regular FLIR camera. Sprites are molecular nitrogen fluorescent emissions from cold plasma discharges, and are believed not to be accompanied by any real heating of the neutrals, hence would not be expected to produce any (or at least very little) blackbody thermal emissions. Still, it would be interesting to look.

[sugarpuddin88]

I understand that they were first detected by VLF remote sensing; which inspired optical range studies; and that photometric, video and radio measurements (30 Hz to 20kHz) were used to detect the first sprite observations

IR lies between the two sets of Fz, so I would think FLIR would detect it

Moreover, the phenomenon has been said to be related to heating (and ionization). Thus, should it not be detected in the IR Fz range?

[Eastview605]

No, the first observation of a sprite was in 1989 and was accidental. It was made by Dick Franz, one of Jack Winckler's grad students at the Univ. of Minnesota when they were testing cameras for auroral observations. Had nothing whatsoever to do with radio. These types of events were named "sprites" in 1993, and it was only then that the radio guys went back and found some previously unaccounted for signatures that were associated with sprites. The discovery and initial work was purely video.

[Eastview605]

About the IR - the term "heating" used by the radio guys refers to electron heating, not thermal heating of the neutrals. Not the same. FLIR detects thermal emissions in the medium infrared spectrum (several microns), due to hot neutrals. There should be some near infrared emissions (1-2 microns) from N2 due to electron impact of excited electronic states of neutral N2, but this would be at shorter wavelengths than typical FLIR cameras can detect. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to look.

[Necrodragn]

Wow.

I don't know much on these types of lightning, but I'm guessing having the right conditions for it is a rarity. Although it lacks color for the full effect, the patterns it makes are certainly something amazing. Correct me if I am wrong but it appears you have the camera set at a low angle, and the lightning appears to be close, and as such I thought these classes of lightning occurred at higher altitudes. That's what confuses me.

[wxchaser03]

these happen more than we think. they occur a max height 90-100 km up with about 60 km extension of the tendrils. those are probably several hundred kilometers away. great video I love watching it.

[wxchaser03]

I beleive this week we have confirmed the first ever negative charge lowering CG to have initiated a sprite with a halo. Sucker was a big one too. had a charge moment change of over 500 C/km. over 20000 sprites have been seen since there discovery in 1989 and there has never been a negative CG proven to initiate a sprite. check out sky-fire(dot)tv for images and info.

[FionaTheFox]

That one at 1:00 is incredible. It doesn't matter what kind of jets or sprites you caught, the fact is, you DEFINITELY caught megalightning (as its called)on camera. This is very incredible and so rare, it is almost nonexistent.

[c00lAnime]

why does the movie speed up ubar fast at 1:56 when you pause it and press play?

[wxchaser03]

no those are all red sprites. there are no blue jets.

[06solareclipse]

The blue jet is a 1:56.

[wxchaser03]

Im sorry to disapoint you but there is no blue jet at 1:56 or throughout this whole movie and im not a 15 year old that had to do a report on them. What you see is jokingly called a comb sprite, or a sprite that has a large horizontal distance with shorter vertical extending tendrils. blue jets as far as we know dont travel higher than 50 or so km while the sprite you are seeing there is probably about 70-80 km high.

[06solareclipse]

Hi wxchaser03,

just to clarify that we are talking about the same streak of light: I'm talking about the hardly visible light beam that rises just a bit above the tree near the center of the image at 1:56. It is much lower than all the other red sprite and it shows upward motion for about 3 frames. A second later red sprites with a large horizontal extension appear in the right half of the image. Maybe you are talking about these ones that are clearly red sprites.

[wxchaser03]

that is more than likely a farther away C sprite (Columniform sprite) There has not to my knowledge ever been a low light level video of a blue jet without a blue filter. the transmission of the weak blue signal is severely attenuated through the atmosphere especially at the distance the storm is away from you. The research facility I work at has recorded storms with LLTV since 1993 and has never recorded a blue jet. And we record about 500 hours of storms a year id guess.

[06solareclipse]

Thanks for your comment wxchaser03. I'll prepare a video in better quality and upload it to YouTube to identify the type of phenomenon.

[wxchaser03]

that would be great. If it truelly is a jet which it could be with better analysis it would be very important. Would you perhaps have the hour/min/seconds that is acurate, I would love to take a look at the World Lightning Detection network and see the data set for those sprites.

[Eastview605]

wxchaser03, there were two kinds of cameras that captured the first blue jets in 1994. The clearest images came from a standard monochrome white light ICCD - no blue filter. The second camera was an intensified color camera by Ikegami. The jets showed up primarily in the blue channel,hence the designation blue jets.

[wxchaser03]

quite aware of the fairbanks jets, man are they impressive. What is your relationship to the sprite world? I love how there are so many interested people in them and the majority of the last couple comments are from people who have worked researching them. I wish my boss would let us put some videos up but he produces dvd's so no go. :(

[Eastview605]

I'm reluctant to explicitly identify myself on a YouTube forum, but tell Walt I've been advertising his dvd in Spain (I'm writing from Granada) and to be expecting a call about this in the next week or so. ;-)

[wxchaser03]

perfectly understandably. It always astonisheses me how walt is known. But he is very good. Ill pass the word on, we have a meeting in the next week with CSU to go over the next step in LMA analysis. Glad to see more 'professionals' on youtube. cant find videos anywhere else and what a great medium to educate on sprites.

[aquamarinedream]

@wxchaser03 yes there is i saw it it is faded but visible

[TH3d0od]

@06solareclipse yeaa i see what you are talking about. It does look like a bluejet.

[wxchaser03]

thats not a blue jet. it is very hard to see blue jets with low light level cameras. they are very faint and without a blue filter it is very hard. Im very sure this video does not have a blue jet in it. It can be confusing because there are sprites that are similar in structure that are called "carrot" sprites. they occur with smaller peak currents and larger impulse charge moment changes.

[doodlestroodle]

Looks to me like the blue jet is at the 44 sec mark.

[wxchaser03]

ive already seen over 500 this year and there is no blue jet on this video. heres what you need to have sprites. cloud tops with temperatures colder -50C with total area of the region over 150,000 KM^2, reflectivity values higher that 50 dbz somewhere in the storm, most sprites occur with positive lightning with peak currents higher than 75kA. The trailing stratiform region of MCS are the best place to see them but they can occur in decaying supercells and other high convective storms.

[ChAoS9779]

Didn't they use this fotage on NGC?

[MartinIrma]

I have seen NGC twice this week having a documentary about lightning, and this footage wasn't in it. They talked about ball lightning, sprites, blue jets and elves.

[ChAoS9779]

Yeah, but reds weren't on it? >.<

[MartinIrma]

Yes, they were on it.

[ChAoS9779]

HEHE i said fotage.

[wxchaser03]

sprites are awesome. im interning for Dr. Lyons, one of the forefathers of sprite research and I get to watch videos like this all day. Although the sprites in this video are somewhat atypical as they are all very well defined and have great structure. search sky-fire tv for any info on sprites, halos, elves, blue jets, giant blue jets, trolls, pixies, or any other middle and upper atmospheric lightning.

[BlueNinja150]

Where is the sprite?

[BlueNinja150]

Wait, never mind.

[Oathblivion]

Nice! Thanks for the upload. Oh, and is the longer-lasting flash at 3:04 the jet? I couldn't pick out a blatant one...

[no1sailor]

I didn't know these could be seen from ground level - where were you, and how far from the storm?

[ChAoS9779]

Depending how big the storm was you can see them. Besides, the majority of lightning is negative so the odds of ANYONE seeing sprites is insanely unusual.

[auto9898]

Do you know how far this storm was from you?

[Cchrisbud813]

where is the blue jet? I did see a meteor, but I don't know which flash is the jet. Very impressive sprites. From what I've read they are almost too dim to see with the naked eye, unless your enhanced image allowed them to be more easily seen.

[gluftness]

anyone know where the blue jet is?

[Stickman550]

dude, was that a shooting star? at like, 2:15? nice fotage, i love it! i dident see the blue jet u were talking about, were is it at on the video?

[bigseese]

look like sumthin from starwars and shit lol

[EiketZu]

@G4331 that weren't sprites... maybe elves or blue jets... higher lightnings... go to wikipedia and look for "blue jets" or "elves"...

[G4331]

This was the real killer of the last space shuttle catastrophe, not foam.

[libeshb]

there are a few more weather phenomenon that has been recorded recently. could u guys kindly post their names here? thnx

[foehammer444]

i had to do a project and i chose to do them on sprites and learned alot of shit! like the sprites are 45 miles high above the clouds and ect. also elves are just a burst of heat not electricity and blue jets are not lightning either. They are just long lasting (kinda) long lasting , steaks heat! not electricity CAN U BELIEVE A 12 YEAR OLD KNEW ALL THIS!? HAHAHA nah im 13 now though!

[Hannahbonanasmiles]

I saw a show on this too... they are above the clouds and stuff, and are like really big..

[skydome29]

these arent sprites...they are higher up in the atmousphere above the clouds and they discharge upwards unlike negatively charged lightning goes downward

[EiketZu]

You maybe mean elves or Blue Jets? That could be a reason...

[ACMalloch]

actually none of them go up they just occure higher up in the atmosphere and work down

[skydome29]

i disagree with the direction, i still belive upwards

[ACMalloch]

it goes down and converges into positive lightning

[skydome29]

the columbia

[painkiller1]

"apparently" these sprites caused that space shuttle to fall out of the sky in 2001? i forge the name but all the parts o the shuttle were scattered around the southern U.S.

[KittieXFloats]

Blue Jet: differ from sprites in that they project from the top of the cumulonimbus above a thunderstorm, typically in a narrow cone, to the lowest levels of the ionosphere above the earth. They are also brighter than sprites and, as implied by their name, are blue in color. Again, this could be currents being generated from potential differences in the upper atmosphere caused by the same derivation of charge from the Solar Wind.

[BryanBeatsYouAll]

i saw a show on this!

[Mistypool]

Oh, I remeber, we studied these in fifth grade . . .

[pisceschica]

I watched a show on sprites but I thought they could only be seen from above the clouds, like it an airplane.

[alecongua]

Sorry, but I didnt fully understand this one... Can you tell us what to look for with more detail...?

[Martek100]

Yes, sprites are not lightning bolts.. it is the energy on top of a thunderstorm in the distance on top of the thunderstorms. This is awesome and you can see them shooting up into space. The flashing you are seeing again, is NOT a lightning bolt

[travis9]

what is a blue jet?

[redliberation]

Amazing werk.

-TurnsÖffPain Productions

[neogeo328]

yay! first comment! :P