First Sprite Ever Captured - New Info
Taken by Frankie Lucena on July 6, 1989 @
Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico
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Camera Used: Unavailable Unavailable
Exposure Time: Unavailable
Aperture: Unavailable
ISO: Unavailable
Date Taken: 2025:07:21 21:45:14
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Details:
Because of this photo, we now have scientists from around the World researching this and stormchasers photographing this from the ground and Astronauts photographing this from space. I thought that it was Dr. Winckler that captured the first ever sprite but it was actually his Grad Student Robert C. Franz. Here is what he wrote to me: "Bob Franz
Frankie Lucena A few corrections to this history. I am RC Franz (one of John Winckler's graduate students), responsible for this picture. Here is fuller account of this first sprite. This was taken at a low-light Astronomy site (Marine on the St. Croix) operated by the University of Minnesota. John and Robert Nemzek (another graduate student) were at that site looking for optical flashes in the night sky (in John's retirement science project named SkyFlash). I was also there testing this camera for another active experiment SCEX II, lead by Paul Kellogg (also of the University of Minnesota). Since I had built photometric systems and adapted this low-light-level camera (provided by Nasa) to the Echo 7 Active experiment, Paul asked if I would build and test a similar set of instrumentation he could use on his experiment. These were all unrelated endeavors. I was trying to establish a lower limit on its sensitivity by observing stars. After I was up and running, John came broke away from his experiment and checked in with me. I was randomly panning around the night sky when I stopped to look at lightning flashes of a distant thunderstorm to the northeast of our site. That is when we both saw the flash (in a monitor TV monitor I had set up). I was also recording this on VHS."
Photographer's website:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/frankie57pr/54662293074/in/dateposted-public/
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