[Timelapse] Submission 143288 – Grant Birley

On the evening of 2 September I set out in an attempt to capture the rather elusive TLE Sprites. As part of my week long South Island astro adventure, I had been keeping an eye on the storm and it's path and had placed myself in a location I felt could render the rare possibility of both capturing and witnessing this rare phenomenon. With clear skies forecast where I was, an unobstructed clear view of the storm off in the distance with, most importantly, the possibility of clear skies above the clouds meant I had put myself in the best position. Once dark there was no shortage of lightning and the storm stretched across the entire Western Horizon - from South to North - with lightning spanning that entire length. I monitored the lightning and noticed an area where the lightning appeared brighter and faster than the rest and so I focused on that area first. The first flash of lightning rendered my first capture of a sprite! With what turned out to be a very successful night out and no less than 30 sprites captured, I decided to try capture a few on video. This timelapse is exerpts of the video captured along with several stills captured over the period starting the evening of 2 September and ending on the morning of 3 September. Capture details ISO 25,600 1/8 second f/1.4