🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Pine.A32.3.95.980810040303.33730A-100000@freenet2.afn.org>,
"Todd L. Sherman" <afn09444@AFN.ORG> wrote:

...deletia...
>   But when I looked at it in slow motion, I saw what I at first thought to
> be a lens reflection on the ground about 20 feet from where the camera was
> set up, off to the left a bit.  In subsequent slow-mo runs, though, I came
> to the conclusion that this was not a lens reflection.  The forked branch
> was of normal brightness.  But the return stroke was much brighter, and
> followed the same initial track and in the same place, of course, as the
> initial branch stroke where the "reflection" appeared.  But, in the brighter
> return stroke, there was no lens reflection at all.
>   This "reflection" went straight up from the grassy ground in front of the
> camera by about a foot, then bent 45 degrees upward to the left and
> terminated in the air.  It disappeared when the branch disappeared, and did
> not reappear during any of the subsequent return strokes.  (There were four,
> the first three being probably of not enough brightness to even make any
> lens reflection visible, though.)  But the last stroke was extremely bright,
> and if there were going to be a lens reflection, there should have been one
> then.  There was none.

I have no clue what this "analysis" means ... I see nothing here to
preclude the possibility of an internal lens reflection.  The brightness
of a flash has nothing to do with the possibility of internal reflections
... it's simply a matter of geometry and the characteristics of the lens.

>   I am concluding that this "lens reflection" was actually a step leader
> eminating from -- of all strangest of things considering what was around me
> -- a blade of grass in a patch in front of the camera.
>   Now, what hits me as so awesome is the fact that not twenty feet south of
> the camera were two metal vehicles:  mine and a fellow spotter's.  Mine had
> three antennas on it.  My friend's had one.  As well, there had to have been
> at LEAST twenty tall lamps around to light the parking lot at night.  Then
> factor in all the many metal vehicles also sitting in the parking lot at the
> time.  And you have to wonder.....Why did it pick such an odd, low,
> isolated and random thing as a blade of GRASS amongst all of that?
> 
>   I never expected in my life to actually capture something ike this on
> my own videotape.  But I am totally blown away by it.  It's so awesome.
...
>   The most incredible thing I've ever beheld.  I must've sat there last
> night for ten total minutes just staring at the thing in freeze frames with
> my mough agape.
...
>   ...So I guess this means it doesn't just happen to Warren.  ;-)
> 
>   What are the chances of someone getting something like that on video
> anyway?

I think there is virtually NO chance this is a step leader ... sorry to
let the air out of your balloon, but I am pretty confident you are
mistaken in your interpretation.  The one Warren claims is, like yours,
certainly the result of internal lens reflections.  Such reflections are
the result of flashes off-axis, perhaps even out of the field of view. 
I've seen Warren's video claiming to have captured something comparable
and I GUARANTEE it's a reflection of a distant off-axis flash, not a
nearby step leader.  My guess, without seeing your video, is that what you
recorded is comparable.  I've seen similar things in my videos, where
flashes even well off-camera appear within the video.

   Chuck Doswell

-- 
Dr. Charles A. Doswell III     NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory
          1313 Halley Circle, Norman, Oklahoma  73069
phone: (405) 366-0439  fax: (405) 366-0472 <doswell@nssl.noaa.gov>
     WWW home page: <http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/~doswell>
Standard disclaimer ... my views are my own, so don't blame my employer.

The only rule in storm chasing that works all the time is that 
           there are no rules that work all the time!