After watching this, check out Hank's new video "Red Sprites and Jets Explained - New Discovery!" https://youtu.be/tGPQ5kzJ9Tg
My plan was to find a nice dark place in Eastern Colorado to potentially take photos of sprites over this complex. The idea is to be just far enough away to see over the top of the anvils of these storms from an area with relatively low light pollution.
Even though it wasn't yet totally dark, reports were coming into Twitter that other storm chasers were seeing red jellyfish sprites. In disbelief i pulled over to check them out for myself and met up with another nearby chaser interested in seeing them for the very first time.
Usually #sprites are quite dim, and few of them are visible to the eye, so to see them in spite of the glow of twilight meant something extraordinary must be going on. Sprites and other #TransientLuminousEvents generally occur when extremely powerful cloud-to-ground lightning is occuring inside of very vigorous thunderstorms.
Sprites can be described as simply as lightning discharges between earth and the edge of space. Seeing and photographing them perfectly blends my interest in #astrophotography and storm chasing. And this gives me plenty of fun ideas to try out.
For example, using an extraction technique to delete everything from the scene that isn't part of the sprite event.
Here you can see the glow from the storm as it produced a mega CG, and just the sprite, and nothing else!
I had two cameras, one recording video and another taking consecutive long exposure photos. Not only can I produce a timelapse this way, i can isolate this ultra bright jellyfish sprite, plainly visible to the naked eye, even in evening twilight.
By taking images with same settings over and over. I have photos of just the twlight, the airglow, and the stars from this scene. And using a photo the contains a brilliant sprite taken just seconds later, I can then subtract this other stuff from the image that contains the sprite capture. Sprite plus stuff, minus stuff, is just the sprite itself with no other distractions. Doing so reveals incredible detail and structure.
The same technique works with both stills from a video.
And also With those consecutive images I can construct a timelapse, and with the echo effect, you can see just how many sprites I was able to capture.
I'm working with an astronomy modified Canon T3i here, and while this older camera is pretty noisy in low-light, it is also ultra sensitive to even the weakest sprite emissions.
My Canon 6D on the other hand is totally stock but has very low noise in low-light situations.
ironicaly I've been looking to capture sprites for almost 3 years now, and in just a week i've captured nearly 100 of them. I'm learning as I go, which storms to try and work with, and how best to succeed using the gear I have.
Check out this video where I modified my camera for astrophotography and sprites, or check out my storm chase footage from last week. I'll make more in depth videos about sprites in the future including some tutorials. Subscribe to this chanel to see more, thanks and I'll see you out there!
Canon T3i Sigma Art 20mm f1.4, ISO 6400. 30 fps (Should have been 24 but I forgot to fix that!) Canon 6D Rokinon 85mm F1.4 ISO 6400 4-6s individual shots.
After a failed storm chase near Goodland, Kansas on May 23rd, 2020, my attention was turned toward
a large mesoscale convective system, or in other words, a linear complex of storms directly to my
north. My plan was to find a nice dark place in eastern Colorado to potentially take photos of
sprites over this complex. The idea is to be just far enough away to see over the top of the anvils
of these storms from an area with relatively low light pollution. Even though it wasn't
totally dark, reports were coming into Twitter that other storm chasers were seeing sprites.
Be the right opportunity that, you know, how often do you get an MCS like this with perfectly clear
sky? See those? In disbelief, I pulled over to check them out for myself and met up with another
nearby chaser interested in seeing them for the very first time. Usually sprites are quite dim
and few of them are visible to the eye, so to see them in spite of the glow of twilight meant
something extraordinary must be going on. Sprites and other transient luminous events generally
occur when extremely powerful cloud-to-ground lightning is occurring inside of very vigorous
thunderstorms. Sprites can be described as simply as lightning discharges between earth and the edge
of space. Seeing and photographing them perfectly blends my interests in astrophotography and storm
chasing and this gives me plenty of fun ideas and tools in my toolbox to try out. For example,
using an extraction technique to delete everything from the scene that isn't part of the sprite
event. Here you can see the glow from the storm as it produced a mega CG and just the sprite and
nothing else. Directly above. Perfect. Yeah. All right, I've got the spot. Was it still like way
above like we've been? It was moderately above, like I would say again halfway between the anvil
top and those two stars. Oh my god dude. Did I just? I'm still recording. Those were up there
too. They were like way up? Way up. Okay. Way up. I had two cameras, one recording video and another
taking consecutive long exposure photos. Not only can I produce a time lapse this way, I can isolate
the ultra bright jellyfish sprite. Plainly visible to the naked eye, even in evening twilight. By
taking images with the same settings over and over, I have photos of just the twilight, the air glow,
and the stars from the scene. And using a photo that contains a brilliant sprite taken just seconds
later, I can then subtract this other stuff from the image that contains the sprite. Sprite plus
stuff minus stuff is just the sprite itself with no other distractions. Doing so reveals incredible
detail and structure. This same technique works in both stills and in video. I'm working with an
astronomy modified Canon T3i here, and while this older camera is pretty noisy and low light, it is
also ultra sensitive to even the weakest sprite emissions. My Canon 6D, on the other hand, is
totally stock, but has very low noise in low light situations. This is definitely getting closer to us
too. Is it? Yeah. Oh. Ironically, I've been looking to capture sprites for almost three years now with
little success, and in just a week, I've captured nearly 100 of them. I'm learning as I go, which
storms to try and work with, and how best to succeed using the gear that I have. Those are
naked eye vivid. Not even, I mean, no question, clear as day sprites. Like, so bright. So I need
to adjust. This is going to be my, I'm going to get obsessed with this, I can already tell.
Well, I mean, it's scientifically just cool to think about. It's fascinating. What's causing
this? Why, why does this happen? Yeah. And it's got this weird crossover between people who like
chase aurora, who are interested in weather, are interested in space science. It's got some
weird crossover. Bam! Wow. That was a full on. Did you get that? Yes. I hope it's in frame though.
Check out this video where I modified my camera for astrophotography and sprites. Or check out
my storm chase footage from last week. I'll make more in-depth videos about sprites in the future,
including some tutorials. Subscribe to this channel to see more. Thanks, and I'll see you out there.
