Red Sprite

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Red sprite
Taken by Ujvárosi Beáta on May 3, 2018 @ Szerencs, Hungary

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Date Taken: Unavailable

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Details:

Red sprite from Northeast Hungary, on the N-NW sky, at about 12 deg. above horizon. Its origin was a thunderstorm cca. 300 km away, at the border of Czechia and Poland. The first image is the original, the second one is a cropped and contrast-enhanced version, and finally there is a gif animation including the frames before and after the sprite. Exif info: Canon EOS 600D camera, 50mm Canon lens, f1.8 aperture, 1.6 sec exposures, iso 6400

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Comments

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Ujvarosi,

So the red sprites are near the bottom close to center although there does appear to be a few other faint ones in the image. I have never heard of red sprites before, what do you think is in the atmosphere where the red sprites appear as a result of the lightning? One would assume the lightning flash reflected off something at that position in the atmosphere, surprising it would only show up as red. When I take RGB images of a comet with the Moon nearby there almost always are separate red, green and blue shades in the entire final image do to pollution or very thin clouds moving through the sky that the Moon lights up as the RGB images are collected. Your image is very interesting in that it only shows a red reflection. Is this a common thing that you see with lightning? Do you ever see green or blue sprites? A camera that I use has an annoying red flash that flashes when I am taking images, could that by chance be something that might be causing a reflection that you are seeing in your images?

Thanks for sharing your image,

Mike Olason

Posted by Icylander2 2018-05-03 23:22:52

Thanks for your comment. I dont think there are more sprites in my image, it is the noise that looks as if there is something. Since Im not an expert in this field, I dont know what atmospheric conditions are suitable for the red sprite to appear, I know only that they are triggered by normal lightnings (not the reflections of them) and appear above the tops of the storm clouds. They are not very common, so they dont appear with every lightning strike, and it is possible to have a thunderstorm that doesnt even produce any. The red sprite is always red, but there are other lightning-related phenomena that have different colours (mostly blue). Here you can find a collection of these (including the red sprite) with a short description: https://www.albany.edu/faculty/rgk/atm101/sprite.htm

Posted by Zywyke 2018-05-04 01:41:53

Ujvarosi,

Thank you for your kind reply. I didnt realize the red sprites were just above the top of the storm clouds, couldnt see the clouds in the image. That is very interesting, I will have to look for red sprites in distant storms. Thank you for showing me something that I had not seen before and was not aware of.

Mike Olason

Posted by Icylander2 2018-05-04 02:50:40

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