Re: Natural streamer :)

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <A123X-at-aol-dot-com>

If you bring metal objects near enough to an operating TC you will get corona 
off the object even if it's too far for an actual strike to occur.  I've also 
found that if you run a marx generator with the firing gaps small enough to 
fire but the main gap too wide you'll still be able to see very dim sparks at 
each end of the main gap when it tries to fire.

Mark


In a message dated 7/14/02 4:00:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

<< Hi All...
 
 Just saw one of the most really cool things about 15 min ago..   ( 
 10:17am 07-14-02)
 
 I was going to go pick the wife up from work and while I was sitting at 
 the stop lite, I looked over to my left and saw a streamer growing off 
 the top of a metal lamp post frame. It started about 1' in length and 
 increased to about 9' in about 2 seconds. and you guessed it .... 
  lightning struck ...   blew the cap off of the pole and all the lights 
 down the street went out. Darn near hurt myself trying to jump away from 
 the window while in the car...   ( kinda funny now that you think of it )
 
 Always heard about the pre strike streamers forming before a strong 
 strike but thought Id never see one...  
 
 kinda makes me wonder if mini streamers form on the grounded object our 
 coils go for....
 
 Scot D
  >>