2013-09-02 - Wellington, FL - Cylinder

Object caught inside lightning in 960 frames super slow motion, incredibly fast, makes turn

I was shooting Lightning In super slow motion (high speed camera) and got a surprise when I played it back at 32X slower than normal. I made still frames at various points in the video as explained below, and will release the video at the proper time. The single object appears to be cylinder shaped, but also looks to be tumbling/or shape changing, but I think tumbling. When looking at the stills and video, it must be remembered that it was shot at 32X slower than normal. Due to the high frame rate, it will appear to be going at normal speed. I refer to it as a “perceptual” speed, that is what the mind perceives it when viewing. Very important to remember that the video is 32 times SLOWER than normal.

It is the small brown dot/cylinder in the sky moving through the lightning event.

No other aircraft were visible during storm. It was a strong lightning storm, and aircraft avoid those.

There are trees in the lower foreground. Due to High speed capture, they move 32 slower than normal.

I'll give you a little info on the stills. They are numbered by frame.. The 1st frame is 11:02 (11 sec, 2 frames).. In the video it drops from the top of screen and makes a turn into the lightning, passes THRU lightning, (12:21 is inside plasma, you can see the faint dot) and exits to the left (17:09) These photos you are getting are compressed for web transfer. The originals and video are better quality and more clear.

The video was shot in 960 frames a second, slow motion. Normal Video speed is 30 frames a second. I was shooting a lightning storm facing due north to see what lightning looked like in super slow motion. The Lightning event I captured took ½ second to happen. When the camera shot it, it captured at 960 frames a second, there by, the playback of the lightning is 16 seconds. When I played back the video, I saw the object. The object appears at the top of the screen dropping down and making a curve turn of approx. 85 degrees and heads to the west. I was shooting the video over the top of some trees, at about a 45-degree angle, to at least a mile in the sky.

The object takes 7 seconds to travel across the screen. If the video was in real time (perceptual speed) it would be going as fast or faster than a jumbo jet (380-600 mph) and is a mile away (due to the 5 second delay of thunder 1000 ft. sec x 5 = 1mile approx.). If perceptual speed is @ 500 mph, then real time is 16,000 mph. The camera shoots at 960 frames = 32 x slower. If the object was only 100 mph perceptual, then it would be 3200 mph. I observe passenger jets daily (airport close by) and they travel slower then this object if the object was traveling the same perceptual. (if I didn't shoot in slow mo. and the object moved the same in vid as if you were standing and observing) The lightning event occurred in 1/2 sec real time, slowed down to 32 times slower, 16 seconds to play out the entire lightning event. the object takes @ 7 seconds to travel screen. That means the object traveled the distance in .223 of a second. That is fast. You would never ever see this with your naked eye. I have not calculated the distance traveled by the object yet, and am working on that.