While not a great composition, this image shows a semi-rare and very hard to capture object - a red sprite. Red sprites can sometimes be captured (and very very rarely seen) when viewing a powerful lightning storm from its back side. Conditions need to be perfect in that the storm need to be 50-100km away, still very active, and the sky must be clear from the observer to the storm. Even then red sprites only last for about a thousandth of a second. As I was framing my camera for a night of Perseid meteor imaging, this red sprite appeared in the corner of the vertical image. To make sure I captured what I thought I captured, I immediately took a second shot - this time the sprite was not there. Since the sprite was in the lower right corner of the image, I decided to reorient my camera and take a quick horizontal shot to show the lighting storm. This image a pano of the vertical shot containing the sprite and the horizontal shot of the storm. Location: Near Keota, Pawnee National Grasslands, CO Date: 2013-08-11 Camera: Canon XSi (modified) Lens: Bower 14mm f/2.8 Shot: 2 panel mosaic 2x30 seconds f/2.8 ISO 1600 Processing: Photoshop to merge - no other processing
Location: Rocky Mountain National Park, CO Camera: Canon XSi (modified) Lens: Sigma 20mm f/1.8 Mount: Still Tripod + Astrotrac Shot: Panoramic 3x300 seconds f/3.2 ISO 1600 1x30 seconds f/2.8 ISO 1600 Processing: Photoshop, Topaz
