APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

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APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by APOD Robot » Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:06 am

Image A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite

Explanation: There is something very unusual in this picture of the Earth -- can you find it? A fleeting phenomenon once thought to be only a legend has been newly caught if you know just where to look. The above image was taken from the orbiting International Space Station (ISS) in late April and shows familiar ISS solar panels on the far left and part of a robotic arm to the far right. The rarely imaged phenomenon is known as a red sprite and it can be seen, albeit faintly, just over the bright area on the image right. This bright area and the red sprite are different types of lightning, with the white flash the more typical type. Although sprites have been reported anecdotally for as long as 300 years, they were first caught on film in 1989 -- by accident. Much remains unknown about sprites including how they occur, their effect on the atmospheric global electric circuit, and if they are somehow related to other upper atmospheric lightning phenomena such as blue jets or terrestrial gamma flashes.

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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by bystander » Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:18 am

Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by Beyond » Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:41 am

The last Sprite i saw many years ago, showed up a lot better than the sprite in today's photo, and tasted good also. I just don't usually see much of any kind of sprites. :no:
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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by Beluga » Wed Aug 29, 2012 9:14 am

Does anybody know if it is possible to see any of those upper atmosphere lightning phenomena with the naked eye?

Tszabeau

Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by Tszabeau » Wed Aug 29, 2012 11:43 am

Beluga wrote:Does anybody know if it is possible to see any of those upper atmosphere lightning phenomena with the naked eye?
Only from surmising that they were first reported 200 years ago, before photography, that someone spotted them with only their eyesight.

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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by starsurfer » Wed Aug 29, 2012 11:48 am

Tszabeau wrote:
Beluga wrote:Does anybody know if it is possible to see any of those upper atmosphere lightning phenomena with the naked eye?
Only from surmising that they were first reported 200 years ago, before photography, that someone spotted them with only their eyesight.
They might have been observed telescopically although this seems unlikely considering the poor optical quality of early telescopes (in comparison to modern telescopes).

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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by orin stepanek » Wed Aug 29, 2012 12:13 pm

Anecdotally? Love it! 8-) :D
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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by emc » Wed Aug 29, 2012 12:35 pm

I’d say by the look of the kitty’s fur, she just saw her first Sprite! And the dog doesn’t appear to believe what the kitty is telling him. He’s probably thinking, “How do I respond to this?” (I assume the dog is a “him” and the kitty is a “her” as I am projecting human characteristics). Females always seem to have something to tell us! :wink:
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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by FloridaMike » Wed Aug 29, 2012 1:50 pm

emc wrote:I’d say by the look of the kitty’s fur, she just saw her first Sprite! And the dog doesn’t appear to believe what the kitty is telling him. He’s probably thinking, “How do I respond to this?” (I assume the dog is a “him” and the kitty is a “her” as I am projecting human characteristics). Females always seem to have something to tell us! :wink:

Waaaaayyy off topic here..... It is my observation that many people associate Dogs with male and Cats with female. My guess is this is because we learn the differences between cats and dogs before we learn the differences between male and female. The binary categories of cat / dog get mapped to the binary categories of male / female.

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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by JMC » Wed Aug 29, 2012 1:52 pm

WHERE ON EARTH IS THIS PHOTO

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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by bystander » Wed Aug 29, 2012 2:18 pm

Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
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Cherry Sprite

Post by neufer » Wed Aug 29, 2012 2:23 pm

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/59/Cherry_Sprite38666.shtml wrote:
Cherry Sprite recipe from CDKitchen serves/makes 1

INGREDIENTS:
  • 3/4 cup Sprite
    1 tablespoon grenadine syrup
    1 tablespoon maraschino cherry juice
DIRECTIONS:
  • Combine all; serve over ice.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cherry%20sprite wrote:
Cherry Sprite: DC metro area slang for a red car.
  • I was I-95ing in my cherry sprite,
    gettin chased by the blueberry boys.
    whip ride wheels hoopty red i-95 blueberry boys
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by orin stepanek » Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:33 pm

oops; Read previous post wrong so I took it off! :oops:
Last edited by orin stepanek on Thu Aug 30, 2012 2:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by StarCuriousAero » Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:59 pm

Have we ever caught an elf on camera? Image or video...? They sound amazing. :D

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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by Thomas Ashcraft » Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:27 am

StarCuriousAero wrote:Have we ever caught an elf on camera? Image or video...? They sound amazing. :D
Hi. I captured an elve, actually a more powerful "donut elve", which was generated by a mega-lightning stroke. I was also fortunate enough to witness this event naked-eye which was like a super strong flash bulb flash above the horizon. I did not see any detail in the elve or the sprite cluster below it, rather just the wide flash which was captured on one frame of 30 frame per second video and also on my full spectrum modified dslr. ( With radio emissions, too.)
http://www.heliotown.com/Sprite_May_31_ ... 115UT.html

Some other specimens here: http://www.heliotown.com/Transient_Lumi ... _2012.html

Clear skies,
Thomas Ashcraft in New Mexico

Coyne

Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by Coyne » Thu Aug 30, 2012 5:04 pm

It looks to me like there is a second, separated and dimmer, sprite about three widths of the first to the right and slightly above.

It's possible it's an optical ghost but I don't think so: Looking for similar ghosts of other lights in the frame didn't reveal anything.

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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by Beyond » Thu Aug 30, 2012 6:02 pm

orin stepanek wrote:oops; Read previous post wrong so I took it off! :oops:
Orin, there's a delete button for that, so you don't have to do all that eraseing and then type an explanation. When you delete it quickly, no one knows that you did an oops. No muss, no fuss, no bother. :mrgreen:
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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by orin stepanek » Thu Aug 30, 2012 9:13 pm

Beyond wrote:
orin stepanek wrote:oops; Read previous post wrong so I took it off! :oops:
Orin, there's a delete button for that, so you don't have to do all that eraseing and then type an explanation. When you delete it quickly, no one knows that you did an oops. No muss, no fuss, no bother. :mrgreen:
'Twas a day old and there were posts after mine -- so there wasn't any delete button available! :cry: I was lucky to still be able to edit it out! :?
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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by Beyond » Fri Aug 31, 2012 2:21 am

Yeah, the day-old thing. That's when you call on an administrator. Their erasers don't have a time limit. :mrgreen:
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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by Moonlady » Fri Aug 31, 2012 12:43 pm

Beyond wrote:Yeah, the day-old thing. That's when you call on an administrator. Their erasers don't have a time limit. :mrgreen:
Beyond....don't spoil our fun...I'd rather like to read what he posted in the first place :D

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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by Moonlady » Fri Aug 31, 2012 12:50 pm

Thomas Ashcraft wrote:
StarCuriousAero wrote:Have we ever caught an elf on camera? Image or video...? They sound amazing. :D
Hi. I captured an elve, actually a more powerful "donut elve", which was generated by a mega-lightning stroke. I was also fortunate enough to witness this event naked-eye which was like a super strong flash bulb flash above the horizon. I did not see any detail in the elve or the sprite cluster below it, rather just the wide flash which was captured on one frame of 30 frame per second video and also on my full spectrum modified dslr. ( With radio emissions, too.)
http://www.heliotown.com/Sprite_May_31_ ... 115UT.html

Some other specimens here: http://www.heliotown.com/Transient_Lumi ... _2012.html

Clear skies,
Thomas Ashcraft in New Mexico
Wow! A cluster of sprites! The video is amazing, I would have missed the sprite cluster when it was not slow motion! Are you only researching sprites? A sprite specialist?

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Re: APOD: A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite (2012 Aug 29)

Post by Thomas Ashcraft » Sat Sep 01, 2012 3:11 pm

Moonlady wrote:
Thomas Ashcraft wrote:
StarCuriousAero wrote:Have we ever caught an elf on camera? Image or video...? They sound amazing. :D
Some other specimens here: http://www.heliotown.com/Transient_Lumi ... _2012.html

Clear skies,
Thomas Ashcraft in New Mexico
Wow! A cluster of sprites! The video is amazing, I would have missed the sprite cluster when it was not slow motion! Are you only researching sprites? A sprite specialist?
Hi. Thanks for looking. Yes, I am observing sprites intensively presently. They are thrilling to capture. Clear skies, Thomas

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