Chasers

Narration:

Transcript:

[Panagiotis Tsouras]

I really love chasing sprites. It’s a way out of my daily routine. When a big sprite appears, we usually celebrating by screaming.

Fortunately, we are away from other people.

Ahh! Opa!

[Thomas Ashcraft]

It’s kind of like fishing. The thrill of fishing and catching. The thrill of capturing a sprite, it never gets old.

Each one is unique and separate. No two are identical. There’s discoveries to be made here.

I do it partly for the thrill of it. But then there’s also the science, which is important as well.

Everybody has a piece of the puzzle and we are all putting it together.

[Frankie Lucena]

It wasn’t until 2010 that I was able to capture my first TLE, which happened to be a gigantic jet.

I have since captured many other types of TLEs like sprites, elves, halos, and more gigantic jets. I enjoy doing this because it not only fascinates the casual viewer but it also helps the scientific community better understand these events.

[Stephen Hummel]

I work here at McDonald Observatory, part of the University of Texas at Austin.

My job is to work with the surrounding communities to help preserve the night sky.

And that has the added benefit of also helping to preserve our view of sprites and TLEs.

TLEs are some of my favorite things to photograph in the night sky. They are endlessly fascinating to me.

They never are the same twice and I always feel like I’m on the verge of discovering something new ever time I go out and photograph them.

[Paul Smith]

I love chasing red sprites because I just find it so fantastic and amazing how we can see raw nature, kind of painted across the night sky like this.

And each one is so beautiful and so different that I find myself getting addicted to going out and finding what I can captured next.