Spritacular ⚡

@Astro_Ayers Fantastic capture! Would love to host these phenomenal images from the orbit in our database of Spritacular (spiracular.org)! These are invaluable captures for the research community to work with :)

Just. Wow. As we went over Mexico and the U.S. this morning, I caught this sprite. Sprites are TLEs or Transient Luminous Events, that happen above the clouds and are triggered by intense electrical activity in the thunderstorms below. We have a great view above the clouds, so

Sprites made it to Google’s Halloween 🎃 👻 game! Make your way to the mesosphere to see it for yourself! Oh by the way, we are celebrating 2 great years of @spritacular with a wealth of data from our volunteers in 18 different countries! @DoNASAScience @Google #sprites

Huge congratulations to photographers Nicolas Escurat and Paul Smith (@PaulMSmithphoto) for having their stunning sprite images featured in the 2025 NASA calendar! 📅✨ Your incredible work and support of the @spritacular project inspire us all. Keep shining! @DoNASAScience

RT @ameliaUrquhart_: @spritacular Multiple sprites observed last night in rural Cherry County, Nebraska (42.21165°N, -100.52223°W), looking…

A couple more from back of camera because that was not even close to the best one all night

@ztresearch Thanks Tom! Looking forward to seeing them. Would love to see your footage as well.

Great capture Tom! It really doesn’t get any better than this! 🤩🤯

Thanks for stressing the importance of accurate camera time and location. Paying attention to this this simple step, will make your data very useful for research. Also, please consider joining our community and submitting your observations to spritacular.org!

@SpaceWxRina @TweetAurora WOW another amazing capture!

Seeing a lot of folks successfully capturing aurora and sprites last night!! If you’re one of the “winners” 😉 from last night, be sure to submit your reports to @TweetAurora and @spritacular! 🎉

@SpaceWxRina @TweetAurora WOW! This is a fantastic capture Tom! Congrats.

Even more folks with captures of aurora and sprites showing up on my feed! If you also saw the aurora, sprites, or both, be sure to share your reports with @TweetAurora and @spritacular! 🎉

@dominickmatthew Great capture, Matthew! If you don’t mind, could you submit it to spritacular.org? We’re putting together a database of these types of phenomena for @NASA scientists to study. Your unique vantage point could really help!

Super lucky a few weeks ago when shooting a timelapse of a lightning storm off the coast of South Africa. One of the frames in the timelapse had a red sprite. A rare event. My knowledge is pretty much just from Wikipedia but I want to know more. 50mm lens, f1.2, 1/5s, ISO 3200

@RogerForster1 @stim3on Sprites can be visible to the naked eye, but they happen so quickly that you really can’t make out more than just a red flash of something. They would also appear much more faint than what you see in photos since cameras can gather more light

@stim3on We're they visible to the naked eye?

@Healey_Photo This is a beautiful shot! Would you mind submitting it to spritacular.org so we can study it? Our database is run by @NASA scientists so they can learn more about these awesome phenomena ⚡️

Oh sweet jesus i got it (between purple and pink bands)

Check out the full thread! 🧵⬇️

@stim3on @ScienceOutThere Thanks for the mention, Simeon! And great captures! 😍

Lightning induced Gigantiuc Jet plasma event. This was captured on Sept 25 2023 at 8:46am facing NW from Cabo Rojo, PR. @DeborahTiempo @adamonzon @weatherchannel @NASA @NOAA @AMSAtmoElect @atmos_elect @NWS @NWSSanJuan @VaisalaGroup @ASIM_Payload @spritacular @spaceweather

Many thanks to @MaximeDaviron for sharing this incredible shot of #sprites dancing above the clouds with the huge #aurora displays from May’s historic solar storm. Did you capture any sprites you’d like to help us @DoNASAScience with? Submit them at spritacular.org!

Capturing a TLE takes planning, luck, an eye for composition… and some *very* quick reflexes! The images they capture are propelling NASA’s @spritacular citizen science project forward as we try to understand what drives these elusive atmospheric phenomena. Watch to learn more:

This month’s #HelioBigYear theme is visual art, and these folks are taking the craft to the next (atmospheric) level! Meet the people melding art and science in the pursuit of Transient Luminous Events, or TLEs. ⬇️