DrSpiderMatt
Simeon SchmaußI was speechless when I saw this appear on my camera's LCD screen last night - this is only the second time I photographed #RedSprites.
I also had my other camera running with a wide angle lens. You can see the corresponding storm cell and faintly above three red sprites (the right one is the one pictured above)
The sprite was most likely triggered by this extremely strong 308kA CG+ flash that struck into a small hill near Füssen in Southern Bavaria.
I was positioned 65 km to the northeast of this flash.
via @kachelmannwetter
https://kachelmannwetter.com/de/blitze/bayern/20240625-2110z-d-202406252108049000015001.html
Here are two timelapses made from the sprite image sequence. It's hard to miss all the satellites - most of them are #Starlink I barely captured a single image without one. Quite frightening in my opinion.
CW because of flickering lightning.
If this is your first time hearing about sprites, have a look at this article featuring Paul Smith and other great scientists researching TLEs.
https://www.snexplores.org/article/sprites-jets-elves-storm-powered-lights
https://www.snexplores.org/article/sprites-jets-elves-storm-powered-lights
Fishy@stim3on Well this is something I learned today. Thanks for the amazing photos/ time lapses!
toni ✨🧠@stim3on Thank you, this is really interesting. I’ll make it a lightning talk (pun not intended) at our team retreat tomorrow.
vandorb12@stim3on this is the additional context I was craving. I love learning about atmospheric phenomena, and I only heard of ELVES once before, and certainly not sprites!
Ross Floate@stim3on Thanks for sharing — I had no idea these existed!
David Ruffner@stim3on Congrats on catching a photo of red sprites! So cool! Thanks also for linking to the explainer article about red sprites and other TLEs. I had heard of red sprites but didn't know much about them so it was helpful.
Alice@stim3on This looks incredible.
David Atchley (old account)@stim3on great shots. Could agree more on the satellite pollution that is primarily Starlink. I do a lot of astrophotography as well.
dasgrueneblatt
DerSchulze
xs4me2Weird stuff…
Fedo ¶@stim3on amazing! They look very unusual, seems like they’re quite distant from any cloud
@fdrc_ff They are pretty high up, something like 70-100 km. You can see the storm cloud that triggered it in my second image.
jfml - Jonas Laugs
LillyLyle/Count Melancholia@stim3on Literally sitting with my mouth hanging open looking at these photo! Wow
@LillyHerself That's pretty much how I reacted when I first learned about them four years ago. It's just such a weird and elusive phenomenon that makes me wonder what else we don't know about our planet.
Geoff 🏴@stim3on Dude, nice. A photograpic ambition I've never met, and probably never will. *doffs cap*
Joe Mansfield
Bruce Harry@stim3on outstanding
Eobard Toyotathon@stim3on super, super cool