Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Stars, Sprites, Clouds, Auroras

NASA ^ | February 04, 2015 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: What are those red streaks in the sky? While photographing unexpected auroras over a distant thunderstorm, something extraordinary happened: red sprites. This brief instance of rarely imaged high-altitude lightning flashed so bright that it was witnessed by several people independently. Pictured over Minnesota, USA in May 2013, these red sprites likely followed an extremely powerful low-altitude conventional lightning bolt. Captured in the featured frame are a house and electrical pole in the foreground, thick clouds in the lower atmosphere, a lightning storm on the horizon, distant red sprites and green aurora in the upper atmosphere, and distant stars from our local neighborhood of the Milky Way Galaxy. The spectacular image is thought to be only the second known case of sprites and auroras photographed together, and possibly the first in true color.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit and Copyright: Mike Hollingshead (Extreme Instability)]

[SunkenCiv]

2015 APoD Calendar

The Big One

join or quit list APoD 'blog post new APoD topic Astronomy Picture of the Day topic & keyword Astronomy Chat, Bloggers & keyword Science Chat, Bloggers & keyword NASA's APoD archive Calendar 1995-present APoD on your desktop

[KoRn]

/yawn

zzzZZZZzz

(I reckon all of them can’t be great lol)

[NormsRevenge]

Sprite happens.

Never forget the day the Columbia got zapped

Or so a few have postulated.

[SunkenCiv]

I wonder what the Pepsi people feel about this topic.

[SunkenCiv]

:’) I do like the setting.

[TheOldLady]

That’s a really cool picture. There is so much to see, and the big
one on the APOD site enlarges very handily.

It looks like a once-in-a-blue-moon picture, worthy of wallpaper.

Thank you, Mr. Civilizations.

[NormsRevenge]

I used to drink Sunny SKy as a kid. Way before Pepsi.

[mikrofon]

Appropriate Theme Music (sorta)

[dr_lew]

I was amazed at how perfect the stars look ... in fact it made me suspicious! He's got a lot of these on his website from that night, and everything seems to check out. He is an animated gif matching the stars in the full-size detail with the appropriate time and place view of my Starry Night software. Nothing complicated, but it took me a while!

There are stars down to eighth magnitude in this image, I have to zoom the Starry Night view a little closer in to go that low.

[The Cajun]

From the “big one”, looks like there is one heck of a thunderstorm happening on the horizon.

[The Cajun]

Now that's just plain good.

[Clara Lou]

That is gorgeous! (In spite of the pole and the wire, etc.) Another picture of the day added to my screen saver folder!