November 14, 2014 at 17:11The catchers of lightning. Unusual thunderstorm experiments
- Tutorial
Good afternoon, dear readers of Habr.
I will talk about my unusual hobby. No, this is not a photo / video lightning hunt. I catch lightning in the literal sense of the word, launching a kite in thunderclouds. I direct the energy of a thunderstorm to special circuits and devices to conduct experiments.
I was always inspired by the beauty and power of lightning. The current strength in the lightning discharge reaches 10-300 thousand amperes, and the voltage is from tens of millions to a billion volts. The discharge power is from 1 to 1000 GW. That would be good to "tame" this energy!
I want to warn you, do not repeat this at home! I take special care and know well the nature of electrical phenomena. Remember, a lightning strike is deadly.
The first thing that comes to mind is to bring a wire to a thundercloud and discharge the charge to the ground. But how to raise the wire so high? Having considered all possible options, I came to the conclusion that this can be done with the help of a kite. Even before the thunderstorm began, I thoroughly tested the kite. I was pleased with his lifting power! Even in a small wind, the kite lifted quite heavy loads, and in a strong wind it was difficult to keep it by the fishing line. But the wire of snakes could not raise high, since already 100 meters of wire weighed 2 kg and the wire had a great sail - it was blown away by the wind to the side. It was decided to replace the wire with a thin wire. Nothing that the wire can withstand the huge current of lightning and burns out instantly, an ionized channel is formed in place of the wire, and the main charge of lightning passes through the low resistance of this channel. To achieve the minimum weight, windage and, as a consequence, the maximum height, I used a wire of different thicknesses: the first 100 meters from the snake is the thickest ≈0.3 mm, the next 100 meters are thinner, and so on, so that it does not tear under its own weight. The line on which I let the snake also chose as thin as possible - 0.25 mm. She held the snake securely. A test run showed that a snake with a wire is able to fly to a height of 300 - 500 meters. The clouds are of course higher, but still worth a try. A test run showed that a snake with a wire is able to fly to a height of 300 - 500 meters. The clouds are of course higher, but still worth a try. A test run showed that a snake with a wire is able to fly to a height of 300 - 500 meters. The clouds are of course higher, but still worth a try.
After waiting for thunderstorm weather, we drop everything, jump onto a scooter and fly at maximum speed under a cloud. In the very place where lightning sparkles stronger and thunder booms. It is so exciting that strong wind and rain are no longer a hindrance for us. Upon reaching the place, we unwind 200 meters of fishing line and lay it in a straight line to the ground. We tie a kite and put a balloon near it, around which the wire is neatly wound. We put the cylinder on an insulated box and ground it through measuring current shunts, and also connect various household appliances to see what will happen to them after the destructive force of a thunderstorm. As soon as the snake begins to take off, we run away to a safe distance and observe what is happening. The snake took off pretty well, but the lightning did not want to fall into it, although it was loudly loudly nearby. We tried several more times in another place and again failed. It became clear that something needs to be changed.
The lightning nearby, and even caused by you, is really cool.
You are probably wondering how we managed to catch the lightning? See the place where lightning struck. What have we experienced, being in close proximity to this terrible element? And find out what happened to our equipment after a thunderstorm. In this video, I will show everything in detail:
In the last video, I tied a thin wire to a snake and launched it into a thunderstorm, but nothing came of it. Now I have finalized this technology and applied high voltage to the wire from the Yunost TV. At the anode of the tube, it uses 10,000 volts. This is enough to cause the initial ionization. In the dark, you can even observe how the corona discharge glows at the tip of the wire, which is fixed at the top of the snake. In stormy weather, I drove out of town and on a high hill I turned on the Yunost portable TV from the battery. I carefully grounded the body of the telly, and connected the high-voltage output to a thin copper wire wound on a bottle. As the kite climbed, the wire easily rolled off the bottle. At this time, I watched the process from a safe place. The serpent then climbed, then fell, why the wire touched the earth and sparked. At the next gust of wind, the kite abruptly rushed up and lightning with a deafening crash hit the television. I did not expect that from the lightning there will be such a strong shock wave, which my camcorder threw back. The sensations of lightning are simply indescribable. Sound is like an explosion of an artillery shell, only more impressive and sharper. A flash is something. It was possible to examine it well, since I saw it for several minutes, especially if I closed my eyes. And the inner feelings can not be expressed in words! After lightning, we did not immediately recover. I just could not believe that this could be done with one's own hands. And then, as if not quite sane, they were running through the forest, fearing that the military might come to such a noise. that there will be such a strong shock wave from lightning that my camcorder has thrown back. The sensations of lightning are simply indescribable. Sound is like an explosion of an artillery shell, only more impressive and sharper. A flash is something. It was possible to examine it well, since I saw it for several minutes, especially if I closed my eyes. And the inner feelings can not be expressed in words! After lightning, we did not immediately recover. I just could not believe that this could be done with one's own hands. And then, as if not quite sane, they were running through the forest, fearing that the military might come to such a noise. that there will be such a strong shock wave from lightning that my camcorder has thrown back. The sensations of lightning are simply indescribable. Sound is like an explosion of an artillery shell, only more impressive and sharper. A flash is something. It was possible to examine it well, since I saw it for several minutes, especially if I closed my eyes. And the inner feelings can not be expressed in words! After lightning, we did not immediately recover. I just could not believe that this could be done with one's own hands. And then, as if not quite sane, they were running through the forest, fearing that the military might come to such a noise. especially if you close your eyes. And the inner feelings can not be expressed in words! After lightning, we did not immediately recover. I just could not believe that this could be done with one's own hands. And then, as if not quite sane, they were running through the forest, fearing that the military might come to such a noise. especially if you close your eyes. And the inner feelings can not be expressed in words! After lightning, we did not immediately recover. I just could not believe that this could be done with one's own hands. And then, as if not quite sane, they were running through the forest, fearing that the military might come to such a noise.
In just 5 minutes we flew home and now you can safely study the effects of a lightning strike. If you look at the video that I shot, in frames, you can see sparks that diverge from the TV rings - this magnetically tore the remaining turns of wire from the bottle. Then you can see how the lightning jumped onto the TV antenna and instantly evaporated it! Lightning came out of the channel switch into the ground, melting it like after welding. The battery cable has burned out. For some reason, I did not see the molten earth in the place where the lightning struck. Maybe I got a weak lightning. But then I found three holes on the ground around which the grass burned out. It turns out that lightning entered the ground in three different places, one near the TV channel switch, and the other a meter away from the TV. Why did it happen? Maybe there was a series of lightnings and each hit a new place? But what happened to the TV? To my surprise, the kinescope did not explode; some strange spots appeared on it. The back wall fell off, melted and became covered with bubbles. The antenna completely evaporated, only a piptyk remained. The board was covered with a strange purple coating and many tracks burned out. A membrane was torn from the speaker. But the battery is a pity. Although he was on the sidelines and there was no direct lightning strike, he melted and cracked and was completely discharged. After a full charge, to my surprise, it worked fine. And the cracks were not through - melted from the inside. melted and covered with bubbles. The antenna completely evaporated, only a piptyk remained. The board was covered with a strange purple coating and many tracks burned out. A membrane was torn from the speaker. But the battery is a pity. Although he was on the sidelines and there was no direct lightning strike, he melted and cracked and was completely discharged. After a full charge, to my surprise, it worked fine. And the cracks were not through - melted from the inside. melted and covered with bubbles. The antenna completely evaporated, only a piptyk remained. The board was covered with a strange purple coating and many tracks burned out. A membrane was torn from the speaker. But the battery is a pity. Although he was on the sidelines and there was no direct lightning strike, he melted and cracked and was completely discharged. After a full charge, to my surprise, it worked fine. And the cracks were not through - melted from the inside.
Now the main secret of lightning is unraveled. And what would you like to defuse the storm? Write in the comments and we will do it.
Recently I saw how scientists in the laboratory receive ball lightning. They immerse the electrode in water and feed a high-voltage impulse to it, as a result, ball lightning flies out, which goes out in a split second. This time I decided to conduct a larger experiment. I plunged a massive electrode into the river and gave it a lightning discharge, connecting it through a wire to a kite flying up to a thundercloud. But something went wrong. The wire began to sparkle, after which the snake hissed and lit up with a bright blue glow. A luminous ribbon began to fall from it, and as soon as it touched the ground, lightning struck with deafening power. I still did not understand what a strange natural phenomenon I was observing! For some reason, lightning struck not the river, but the shore, leaving a scorched trace on the ground:
It is a pity that the camera that filmed the kite turned off and did not capture the way it glowed. Generally, shooting lightning close is not such an easy task. Fotik freezes from a powerful electromagnetic pulse, and a flash drive cannot be read from it. But one camera turned out to be more resilient and has never turned off during the shooting. But then I ran into another difficulty. A flash of lightning near looks very bright, like a thousand arcs from the welding machine. The camera does not have time to adjust the exposure and is blinded, because of which the frame with lightning turns out to be illuminated. Reducing the exposure and sports shooting mode does not help here. Of course, ideally, thunderstorms should be shot with a high-speed camera, but the cost of such a camera is shocking: the Sony NEX-FX700R, which is capable of shooting 960 frames per second, costs $ 7,000, and Fastec TS3Cine costs 10,000 frames per second. costs $ 30,000. Even for a decommissioned camera in a killed state, I do not soon collect money. Maybe you know how you can shoot qualitatively thunderstorms? Share your ideas. I will be glad of any help.
Sorry, but the thunderstorm season is over. And so many ideas remained unfulfilled. In the meantime, it’s cold outside, it's time to prepare well for the next season. I am already preparing a dozen advanced lightning fishing gears. The wire will rise using a model rocket engine, which will give a significant increase in height. The ignition control will be remote, which will increase safety. All the necessary devices and wire will be fixed in advance in each installation so that upon leaving, you will not have to waste precious time. I’m preparing the right video equipment to capture the lightning in a full angle with high quality. Get SLOW-MO frames of lightning strike in:
- tree;
- gas cylinder;
- nokia phone;
- a working microwave;
- and much more (suggest in the comments).
Clearly and not illuminated to shoot ball lightning and, with luck, other rare thunderstorms. Get fulgurite . I also want to conduct a series of experiments with lightning energy. Now I’m studying this topic on the Internet in order to prepare well for such experiments. Maybe she’s lucky and will be able to discover something new!
This season was planned much more, but in our city it is not so simple: during the first launches of the kite, we had to look around to see if the tank or the armored personnel carrier was traveling, fearing that the military would not take us for scouts. The next experiment was conducted for a specific bombing, and when lightning struck our television, we were seriously scared of the military, who could take our lightning as an enemy army! And we, like crazy, fled through the forest without a break home. People with machine guns caught my friend, took the phone, put it in the trunk and drove away in an unknown direction. We were lucky, he was not captured. Our last experience with ball lightning was in a landing dotted with unexploded ordnance. We asked the sappers to mine the houses to clear the landing, but they categorically refused to go there, saying that snipers were working in the landing.
Most of the experiments were carried out at the beginning of the summer, but I managed to post a video and write this article quite recently. We live in Lugansk in the East of Ukraine, and as a result of the shelling, the half-million city for almost three months was completely left without electricity, the Internet, and generally without any connection.
That’s all for me. Expect much more grandiose experiments from me next season. Be careful in a thunderstorm. Do not forget to share your ideas in the comments, your experience and knowledge are important to us!
I will talk about my unusual hobby. No, this is not a photo / video lightning hunt. I catch lightning in the literal sense of the word, launching a kite in thunderclouds. I direct the energy of a thunderstorm to special circuits and devices to conduct experiments.
I was always inspired by the beauty and power of lightning. The current strength in the lightning discharge reaches 10-300 thousand amperes, and the voltage is from tens of millions to a billion volts. The discharge power is from 1 to 1000 GW. That would be good to "tame" this energy!
I want to warn you, do not repeat this at home! I take special care and know well the nature of electrical phenomena. Remember, a lightning strike is deadly.
The birth of an idea
The first thing that comes to mind is to bring a wire to a thundercloud and discharge the charge to the ground. But how to raise the wire so high? Having considered all possible options, I came to the conclusion that this can be done with the help of a kite. Even before the thunderstorm began, I thoroughly tested the kite. I was pleased with his lifting power! Even in a small wind, the kite lifted quite heavy loads, and in a strong wind it was difficult to keep it by the fishing line. But the wire of snakes could not raise high, since already 100 meters of wire weighed 2 kg and the wire had a great sail - it was blown away by the wind to the side. It was decided to replace the wire with a thin wire. Nothing that the wire can withstand the huge current of lightning and burns out instantly, an ionized channel is formed in place of the wire, and the main charge of lightning passes through the low resistance of this channel. To achieve the minimum weight, windage and, as a consequence, the maximum height, I used a wire of different thicknesses: the first 100 meters from the snake is the thickest ≈0.3 mm, the next 100 meters are thinner, and so on, so that it does not tear under its own weight. The line on which I let the snake also chose as thin as possible - 0.25 mm. She held the snake securely. A test run showed that a snake with a wire is able to fly to a height of 300 - 500 meters. The clouds are of course higher, but still worth a try. A test run showed that a snake with a wire is able to fly to a height of 300 - 500 meters. The clouds are of course higher, but still worth a try. A test run showed that a snake with a wire is able to fly to a height of 300 - 500 meters. The clouds are of course higher, but still worth a try.
First experience
After waiting for thunderstorm weather, we drop everything, jump onto a scooter and fly at maximum speed under a cloud. In the very place where lightning sparkles stronger and thunder booms. It is so exciting that strong wind and rain are no longer a hindrance for us. Upon reaching the place, we unwind 200 meters of fishing line and lay it in a straight line to the ground. We tie a kite and put a balloon near it, around which the wire is neatly wound. We put the cylinder on an insulated box and ground it through measuring current shunts, and also connect various household appliances to see what will happen to them after the destructive force of a thunderstorm. As soon as the snake begins to take off, we run away to a safe distance and observe what is happening. The snake took off pretty well, but the lightning did not want to fall into it, although it was loudly loudly nearby. We tried several more times in another place and again failed. It became clear that something needs to be changed.
Hurrah! We managed to conquer the storm!
The lightning nearby, and even caused by you, is really cool.
You are probably wondering how we managed to catch the lightning? See the place where lightning struck. What have we experienced, being in close proximity to this terrible element? And find out what happened to our equipment after a thunderstorm. In this video, I will show everything in detail:
In the last video, I tied a thin wire to a snake and launched it into a thunderstorm, but nothing came of it. Now I have finalized this technology and applied high voltage to the wire from the Yunost TV. At the anode of the tube, it uses 10,000 volts. This is enough to cause the initial ionization. In the dark, you can even observe how the corona discharge glows at the tip of the wire, which is fixed at the top of the snake. In stormy weather, I drove out of town and on a high hill I turned on the Yunost portable TV from the battery. I carefully grounded the body of the telly, and connected the high-voltage output to a thin copper wire wound on a bottle. As the kite climbed, the wire easily rolled off the bottle. At this time, I watched the process from a safe place. The serpent then climbed, then fell, why the wire touched the earth and sparked. At the next gust of wind, the kite abruptly rushed up and lightning with a deafening crash hit the television. I did not expect that from the lightning there will be such a strong shock wave, which my camcorder threw back. The sensations of lightning are simply indescribable. Sound is like an explosion of an artillery shell, only more impressive and sharper. A flash is something. It was possible to examine it well, since I saw it for several minutes, especially if I closed my eyes. And the inner feelings can not be expressed in words! After lightning, we did not immediately recover. I just could not believe that this could be done with one's own hands. And then, as if not quite sane, they were running through the forest, fearing that the military might come to such a noise. that there will be such a strong shock wave from lightning that my camcorder has thrown back. The sensations of lightning are simply indescribable. Sound is like an explosion of an artillery shell, only more impressive and sharper. A flash is something. It was possible to examine it well, since I saw it for several minutes, especially if I closed my eyes. And the inner feelings can not be expressed in words! After lightning, we did not immediately recover. I just could not believe that this could be done with one's own hands. And then, as if not quite sane, they were running through the forest, fearing that the military might come to such a noise. that there will be such a strong shock wave from lightning that my camcorder has thrown back. The sensations of lightning are simply indescribable. Sound is like an explosion of an artillery shell, only more impressive and sharper. A flash is something. It was possible to examine it well, since I saw it for several minutes, especially if I closed my eyes. And the inner feelings can not be expressed in words! After lightning, we did not immediately recover. I just could not believe that this could be done with one's own hands. And then, as if not quite sane, they were running through the forest, fearing that the military might come to such a noise. especially if you close your eyes. And the inner feelings can not be expressed in words! After lightning, we did not immediately recover. I just could not believe that this could be done with one's own hands. And then, as if not quite sane, they were running through the forest, fearing that the military might come to such a noise. especially if you close your eyes. And the inner feelings can not be expressed in words! After lightning, we did not immediately recover. I just could not believe that this could be done with one's own hands. And then, as if not quite sane, they were running through the forest, fearing that the military might come to such a noise.
In just 5 minutes we flew home and now you can safely study the effects of a lightning strike. If you look at the video that I shot, in frames, you can see sparks that diverge from the TV rings - this magnetically tore the remaining turns of wire from the bottle. Then you can see how the lightning jumped onto the TV antenna and instantly evaporated it! Lightning came out of the channel switch into the ground, melting it like after welding. The battery cable has burned out. For some reason, I did not see the molten earth in the place where the lightning struck. Maybe I got a weak lightning. But then I found three holes on the ground around which the grass burned out. It turns out that lightning entered the ground in three different places, one near the TV channel switch, and the other a meter away from the TV. Why did it happen? Maybe there was a series of lightnings and each hit a new place? But what happened to the TV? To my surprise, the kinescope did not explode; some strange spots appeared on it. The back wall fell off, melted and became covered with bubbles. The antenna completely evaporated, only a piptyk remained. The board was covered with a strange purple coating and many tracks burned out. A membrane was torn from the speaker. But the battery is a pity. Although he was on the sidelines and there was no direct lightning strike, he melted and cracked and was completely discharged. After a full charge, to my surprise, it worked fine. And the cracks were not through - melted from the inside. melted and covered with bubbles. The antenna completely evaporated, only a piptyk remained. The board was covered with a strange purple coating and many tracks burned out. A membrane was torn from the speaker. But the battery is a pity. Although he was on the sidelines and there was no direct lightning strike, he melted and cracked and was completely discharged. After a full charge, to my surprise, it worked fine. And the cracks were not through - melted from the inside. melted and covered with bubbles. The antenna completely evaporated, only a piptyk remained. The board was covered with a strange purple coating and many tracks burned out. A membrane was torn from the speaker. But the battery is a pity. Although he was on the sidelines and there was no direct lightning strike, he melted and cracked and was completely discharged. After a full charge, to my surprise, it worked fine. And the cracks were not through - melted from the inside.
Now the main secret of lightning is unraveled. And what would you like to defuse the storm? Write in the comments and we will do it.
Why don't we get ball lightning?
Recently I saw how scientists in the laboratory receive ball lightning. They immerse the electrode in water and feed a high-voltage impulse to it, as a result, ball lightning flies out, which goes out in a split second. This time I decided to conduct a larger experiment. I plunged a massive electrode into the river and gave it a lightning discharge, connecting it through a wire to a kite flying up to a thundercloud. But something went wrong. The wire began to sparkle, after which the snake hissed and lit up with a bright blue glow. A luminous ribbon began to fall from it, and as soon as it touched the ground, lightning struck with deafening power. I still did not understand what a strange natural phenomenon I was observing! For some reason, lightning struck not the river, but the shore, leaving a scorched trace on the ground:
It is a pity that the camera that filmed the kite turned off and did not capture the way it glowed. Generally, shooting lightning close is not such an easy task. Fotik freezes from a powerful electromagnetic pulse, and a flash drive cannot be read from it. But one camera turned out to be more resilient and has never turned off during the shooting. But then I ran into another difficulty. A flash of lightning near looks very bright, like a thousand arcs from the welding machine. The camera does not have time to adjust the exposure and is blinded, because of which the frame with lightning turns out to be illuminated. Reducing the exposure and sports shooting mode does not help here. Of course, ideally, thunderstorms should be shot with a high-speed camera, but the cost of such a camera is shocking: the Sony NEX-FX700R, which is capable of shooting 960 frames per second, costs $ 7,000, and Fastec TS3Cine costs 10,000 frames per second. costs $ 30,000. Even for a decommissioned camera in a killed state, I do not soon collect money. Maybe you know how you can shoot qualitatively thunderstorms? Share your ideas. I will be glad of any help.
The most interesting and unusual ahead
Sorry, but the thunderstorm season is over. And so many ideas remained unfulfilled. In the meantime, it’s cold outside, it's time to prepare well for the next season. I am already preparing a dozen advanced lightning fishing gears. The wire will rise using a model rocket engine, which will give a significant increase in height. The ignition control will be remote, which will increase safety. All the necessary devices and wire will be fixed in advance in each installation so that upon leaving, you will not have to waste precious time. I’m preparing the right video equipment to capture the lightning in a full angle with high quality. Get SLOW-MO frames of lightning strike in:
- tree;
- gas cylinder;
- nokia phone;
- a working microwave;
- and much more (suggest in the comments).
Clearly and not illuminated to shoot ball lightning and, with luck, other rare thunderstorms. Get fulgurite . I also want to conduct a series of experiments with lightning energy. Now I’m studying this topic on the Internet in order to prepare well for such experiments. Maybe she’s lucky and will be able to discover something new!
The horrors of our town
This season was planned much more, but in our city it is not so simple: during the first launches of the kite, we had to look around to see if the tank or the armored personnel carrier was traveling, fearing that the military would not take us for scouts. The next experiment was conducted for a specific bombing, and when lightning struck our television, we were seriously scared of the military, who could take our lightning as an enemy army! And we, like crazy, fled through the forest without a break home. People with machine guns caught my friend, took the phone, put it in the trunk and drove away in an unknown direction. We were lucky, he was not captured. Our last experience with ball lightning was in a landing dotted with unexploded ordnance. We asked the sappers to mine the houses to clear the landing, but they categorically refused to go there, saying that snipers were working in the landing.
Most of the experiments were carried out at the beginning of the summer, but I managed to post a video and write this article quite recently. We live in Lugansk in the East of Ukraine, and as a result of the shelling, the half-million city for almost three months was completely left without electricity, the Internet, and generally without any connection.
That’s all for me. Expect much more grandiose experiments from me next season. Be careful in a thunderstorm. Do not forget to share your ideas in the comments, your experience and knowledge are important to us!