Photographer’s Once-in-a-Lifetime Shot of Lightning Sprites and the Milky Way

While out photographing the darkish skies of New Zealand final weekend, the heavens aligned for Dan Zafra as he captured lightning sprites showing in entrance of the galactic core of the Milky Way.

Zafra, identified for his web site Capture the Atlas, says it is perhaps the primary time ever a uncommon and elusive lightning sprite has been photographed with the Southern Hemisphere Milky Way Galaxy in the identical body.

“On the night of October 11, I was shooting under perfectly clear skies when I began to notice faint flashes on the horizon from a distant thunderstorm over the Southern Alps,” Zafra tells PetaPixel.

“At first, they looked like normal lightning, but after a few test shots, I realized my camera was capturing red sprites.”

Red sprites, Zafra explains, are transient, large-scale electrical discharges that happen excessive above thunderstorms, reaching altitudes of as much as 90 kilometers [56 miles].

“They’re almost impossible to see with the naked eye and last just a few milliseconds,” he continues. “Even storm chasers who spend their lives chasing lightning in places like Oklahoma or Texas can go years without witnessing one.”

Zafra calls his expertise “truly remarkable,” and it was made much more magical by the Milky Way’s galactic core lining up completely behind the sprites.

“It was one of those moments when you know you’re witnessing something you’ll probably never see again,” he provides.

Zafra was located on the Clay Cliffs on the South Island of New Zealand when he took the pictures. He used a Sony a7 III, a Sony GM 24mm f/1.4 to seize the shot. The foreground is a two-minute publicity, which has been blended with the 10-second sky publicity.

“I also created a timelapse video that shows these sprites flashing in real time. Since they last only a fraction of a second, the video captures just how sudden and powerful they are,” says Zafra.

Red sprites are among the many rarest and least-understood pure gentle phenomena. They had been first recorded on digital camera in 1989, and just a few photographers around the globe have captured them in excessive element.

They happen above highly effective thunderstorms when constructive lightning discharges attain the ionosphere. Capturing them requires a mixture of excellent situations, persistence, and quite a lot of luck.

“Seeing them move across the sky was mesmerizing,” provides Zafra. “The video adds another layer of perspective, revealing how these short-lived bursts of energy connect Earth’s atmosphere with space in the blink of an eye.”

Zafra says that to the most effective of his information, that is the primary time purple sprites have ever been documented along with the Southern Hemisphere Milky Way. The aurora australis will also be seen as a faint glow.

“It shows how fleeting weather events and timeless cosmic structures can align in the same frame,” Zafra provides. “It’s moments like these that remind me why I spend so many nights under the stars.”

PetaPixel has featured Zafra’s nights beneath the celebs earlier than: earlier this 12 months, he captured a chic shot of the lunar eclipse along with the aurora lights.

More of Dan Zafra’s images is on the market on Capture the Atlas‘ website, Facebook, and Instagram.

Image credit: All pictures by Dan Zafra