RARE 'BLUE JET' LIGHTNING: Seeing one blue jet is rare. Photographer Matthew Griffiths just caught several of them over the Big Bend National Park in Texas. "This is by far the best," he says:
Griffiths is an amateur photographer, primarily interesting in wildlife and the Milky Way. "On July 28th, I was starting a five night West Texas road trip to capture the Milky Way," he says. "But with thunderstorms storms in the distance I decided to try for red sprites instead."
He ended up photographing the sprite's elusive blue cousin. First recorded by cameras on the space shuttle in 1989, blue jets are part of a growing menagerie of cloudtop "transient luminous events." Sprites, ELVES and green ghosts are other examples. They are all elusive, but blue jets may be the hardest to catch.
Photos at site.
Griffiths is an amateur photographer, primarily interesting in wildlife and the Milky Way. "On July 28th, I was starting a five night West Texas road trip to capture the Milky Way," he says. "But with thunderstorms storms in the distance I decided to try for red sprites instead."
He ended up photographing the sprite's elusive blue cousin. First recorded by cameras on the space shuttle in 1989, blue jets are part of a growing menagerie of cloudtop "transient luminous events." Sprites, ELVES and green ghosts are other examples. They are all elusive, but blue jets may be the hardest to catch.
Photos at site.
