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[Music]

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Sprites I saw them on a documentary once

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and I kind of became fascinated with

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them

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while so it's kind of all snowballed in

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[Music]

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I saw that one too

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you saw that red one yeah

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I can't wait to look at that one again

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my name is Paul Smith and I'm a Sprite

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Chaser which means I like to photograph

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the night sky and Sprites in particular

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they look like to the naked eye you

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would probably see them as flashes above

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thunderstorms and then the camera picks

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up more of the colors nice red orange

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sometimes Purple colors

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I would say the region of space about

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the thunderstorms is almost like an

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electrical zoo we have these collection

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of electrical activity we have blue jets

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gigantic Jets trolls Halos it's almost

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like an electric fairy tale Sprites is

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just one of many collectively we call

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these transient luminous events

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Sprites are like snowflakes they come in

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various shapes and sizes so we call them

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Angel Sprites carrots Sprites columns

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Sprites

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they're just beautiful to look at and

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just the fact that no Sprite is

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identical to the other is good enough

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reason to study them and look at them

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all day long you're never going to get

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bored

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so Sprites are very large scale events

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their wits is usually up to 5 to 10

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kilometers and their vertical extent is

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about 40 or 50 kilometers you can almost

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fit a small town in there because these

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Sprites are very large scale events they

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change their atmospheric composition and

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we don't know the extent of this effect

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so it's important to study them in the

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long run

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it's just a real cool thing to be able

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to shoot and see these things that uh

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nobody else is is really getting on a

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regular basis

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I saw their phenomenal images and I

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wanted to work with them and leverage

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their images and data collection and it

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sparked this idea in my head what if I

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created a citizen science project that I

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can connect the public with the

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scientific community so we can further

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our understanding together

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with this new citizen science project

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our goal is to create the first ever

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comprehensive database of Sprites I'm

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very excited about this I know there are

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a lot of people out there who are

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naturally chasing Sprites so I'm asking

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all Sprite Chasers to submit their

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images to us it's like a puzzle they

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provide one piece we provide the other

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with this citizen science project I'm

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just really excited to think that

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finally we'll have a connection because

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I've been getting these Sprites for so

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long and I got a bunch sitting on my

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hard drive that nobody's really

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dissected or looked up so I think this

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so the chance for storms so and Sprite

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[Music]

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I've been studying Sprite for 15 years

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and I have not seen them in person I am

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super excited about the opportunity to

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go chasing with Paul I haven't met him

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before and I'm going to be meeting him

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soon so we're gonna go capture some

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Sprites

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hello oh hi it's so nice to meet you how

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are you I'm doing great awesome

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so what's our plan today where are we

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heading well we got some storms over in

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Arkansas and Mississippi that will be in

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range if we head down to Southeast

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Oklahoma okay let's go Sprite chasing

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the best places to catch Sprites are

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where you've got big lightning strikes

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we're heading to a lake in a dark sky

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area of Southeast Oklahoma

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so when you look at the radar we are

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mostly looking for those regions that

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have red cells and the system was

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evolving to be able to form some

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powerful flashes which we need for the

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um hey Paul so what other tips you have

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for spread chasing

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I always try to look for really dark

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skies maybe a first look on Google Maps

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and just see find areas without any

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development nearby

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left at the fork the fork follow signs

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okay yeah it is it looks pretty open

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here yeah that's the direction we're

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where the storm was on the map I'm just

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I just lined us up on Google Earth to

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like a landmark I could see the point

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this point of the bridge here so yeah we

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are right now here in Oklahoma but the

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storm we're looking at is over

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Mississippi Alabama state border and

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that's pretty far out we are looking

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we're talking about 375 miles so it's

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pretty far out when I look at the screen

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I'm pretty much scanning The Horizon

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here because the storms are pretty far

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out and I will be able to just see the

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lightning Flash the top or the cloud

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tops pretty much that light and then

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that's my clue to trigger and that's

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when I press the button and I don't see

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the Sprite until I actually Replay that

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little capture

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and I'm hoping that I actually captured

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I mean I'm I'm kind of thinking because

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if you don't if I don't see something

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and oh there was a Sprite

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right guys yeah let's see

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I hope I caught it oh my gosh

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oh my God that's awesome and that was

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actually pretty close pretty close high

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fives high fives we did it

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oh

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perfect I think I think we got one

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awesome and I think that was a column

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Sprite it's right there we actually

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captured some rides so I keep replaying

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this this is amazing yeah that's why now

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I understand why you don't want to leave

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once you have one capture

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this is all what science is about it's

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just this excitement and trying to

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understand how they are formed and what

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makes them look the way they are it's

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just it's just amazing and a highlight

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the citizen science project I think that

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it's going to be our best bet for

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figuring out actually what's going on

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with these Sprites and that's exciting

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to think that might happen in my

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lifetime and if it doesn't I'd be