Wednesday, October 03, 2007

19 sprites from Lannemezan

Finally, a thundery week.
Last night, October 2-3rd, a storm developed west of the Pyrenees. Since it was clear in Toulouse, I wanted to observe with my camera at home, and left work after setting the camera in Lannemezan (closer to the storm) aimed to cover a range between west and west-northwest, hoping the storm would be there when it would start to produce sprites.
While setting up the camera at home, the software detected one sprite at the extreme right of the frame, before I even aimed the camera correctly. Unfortunately, no more sprites were detected in the next minutes and then it became totally cloudy. I tried Pic du Midi, but the correct direction was right in line with the big television antenna, and not sure it was clear there.

The next day Serge emailed me the Lannemezan camera had captured 19 sprites! They passed nicely though the view from left to right between 2230-0000 UT.
Here are a few images.



I included also an example of a very weak sprite that is pretty likely to go undetected depending on the sensitivity of the triggering software. Several sprite-triggering +CG flashes were missed by Meteorage, it seems.

By the way, we still owe you the images from a night in September, by Joan's camera in the eastern Pyrenees.