Amazing footage of a lightning strike like you've never seen !

I'll easily admit to being in total awe at the raw elemental power that nature throws around during a lightning storm, however, I wouldn't normally consider creating an entire thread based around just a lightning flash ... but in this instance I'm more than happy to make an exception.

The following is some footage of a lightning storm that took place recently over Rapid City, South Dakota on 16 June, 2010.
What makes this particular footage absolutely mind-blowing (at least in my opinion) is that its only a 1 second recording of a lightning flash but was made at an incredible exposure rate of 9,000 images per second. These 9,000 images of that 1 second flash take 1 min 33 secs to play back and reveal hidden facets of a lightning stroke that I had never realized existed.

In my opinion, absolutely stunning.
Anyway, enjoy ....

www.youtube.com...

awesome nature!

reminds me of central IL. only time i ever got scared of lighting and i've lived in texas, colorado and wyoming!


was watching some cool lightning here last night.


amazing they can do that, 1 sec! so much goes on we don't catch.

Hey, what do you think of this gif I created.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c421ffae1b42.gif[/atsimg]



[edit on 8/6/2010 by endisnighe]

I didn't know this guy had a youtube addy. for this post. I actually saw this same video uploaded by someone else and it was removed due to copyright infrigment. I also mailed the guy and asked what cameras he uses. This was his reply:

I use Vision Research Phantom cameras. The video I uploaded was taken with a v310 version.

reply to post by tauristercus


Wow thanks for that video.

The tower in the distance must get hit 20 times in that one second.

Hard to believe Dr. Frankinstein was the only one to ever harness all that awesome power.

Now that was absolutely amazing ! Thanks for that
And you're right that I've never, ever seen anything like it - especially liked it at the 22 sec mark when you start to see 2 lightning strokes heading away from the ground and traveling up into the sky. Reminded me of a pair of missiles being launched !

I just can't get my head around the stupendous amount of electrical energy that must have been released in just that 1 seconds worth of recording ... a marvelous example of nature at her finest !

VERY nice find, and fascinating video! Like you, I was intrigued by the behavior and the sort of "give and take" between ground tower and cloud.

That was awesome. I live in Oklahoma and we get tons of lightning here so Ive seen my fair share of cool lightning strikes,. but I have never seen anything like that. What I find really interesting about the footage is if this is just 1 second of lightning how fast were all those little mini bolts of lightning that barely even register on the screen? surely those would be nanoseconds in time... Nature constantly reminds us that we still have soo much to learn of our own world. Thanx OP..S&F for ya.

S+F, boy that's cool. And guess why I especially like that

God what I would have gave to have this camera when I tried, with success, to capture lightning on a photograph. I had to take 250 shots during a coming storm to get like 2 good shots and almost ruined my camera due to the intensive raining that came just after I ran to hide in my car!

Awesome footage, S+F

Even with the extreme slow motion in that video, there are still many flashes that are too fast too really be distinguishable. Very nice find. Thanks for posting it.

so much for lightning never hits the same place twice

Insane there is sooo much about this planet we dont know...great find.
If we could continually harness that type of energy what an impact that could make. Looks like the lightning is travrling up at some points..Thanks for sharing the video.

That is so awesome how much action there is in a single second.

Way cooler than my background.

reply to post by tauristercus


Wow, neat video!

S&F for you!

I am always amazed by lightening during a storm. The incredible forces that are present. Ah, to be able to capture that energy and use it in our energy starving world.

The Titans must be loose in South Dakota

Awesome footage

IT LOOKS SO ORGANIC!!!

Awesome video.

It seems that lightening is powered by dozens of mini-discharges. If you watch closely, you can see that those mini-discharges "feed" the main bolt, and so the main bolt grows until it connects the clouds with the ground.

As someone mentioned above, it would be interesting to try and see what creates those mini-discharges. I read once that scientists have linked cosmic particles that come from distant stars with the triggering of lightening.

There is so much more going on in this world than we realize.

If the time stamp is accurate, this was even less than one second of film...

1:37:03.814
to
1:37:04.121

...is about 0.31 seconds -- or a little less than 1/3 of a second (which makes the video all that more amazing)



[edit on 8/6/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]