HR: 09:36h
AN: AE51A-08 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Sprite Spectra at 1000 fps
AU: * Stenbaek-Nielse, H
EM: hnielsen@gi.alaska.edu
AF: University of Alaska, Geophysical Institute, Fairbanks, AK 99775 United States
AU: McHarg, M G
EM: mcharg@usafa.af.mil
AF: U.S. Air Force Academy, Physics Department, Colorado Springs, CO 80840 United States
AB: The physical processes involved in sprites develop on very fast time scales, and high speed spectroscopy may be the key to unraveling them. For this purpose we conducted a field campaign at the Langmuir Laboratory in Soccorro, NM, during the New Moon period in August, 2004. Spectra with millisecond resolution were recorded by a large aperture imaging spectrograph with the 1000 fps imager previously used by Stenbaek-Nielsen et al. (2002) to image sprites. The recordings were made over two wavelength ranges, 550-730 nm, and 620-800 nm, covering the brightest molecular nitrogen bands in the optical/near infrared emissions previously reported by Hampton et al. (1996). Preliminary analysis of the ms spectra show these band structures to be well resolved, but at the time of this writing it is uncertain if any ionized lines were present. Additional spectra at up to 40 kHz resolution were recorded by a newly developed spectral photometer. Analysis of this data set is ongoing.
DE: 3324 Lightning
DE: 3334 Middle atmosphere dynamics (0341, 0342)
DE: 3304 Atmospheric electricity
SC: Atmospheric and Space Electricity [AE]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting