Odd effect noticed

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

Original poster: "J. B. Weazle McCreath by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <weazle-at-hurontel.on.ca>


Hello coilers,

I had a friend drop by to see my coil earlier tonite and he had a
double helix neon tube with him that I placed on top of the toroid
to see what would happen when I fired the coil.

As expected, the tube lit up quite brightly and a terrific pair of
streamers emitted from the electrodes at the ends of the tube, a
rather spectacular light show!  Upon shutting down, we both noticed
that the bulb continued to glow, albeit at a much reduced brightness,
for about ten or more seconds.  During that time, the bulb actually
pulsed in brightness with a rate of about one pulse per second.

The air in my shop was quite dry and cool at the time, and I thought
that this pulsing might be the result of a residual charge on the
toroid and secondary bleeding off, but why at such a low rate?
Any ideas from you guru's as to what was going on there?
  

73, Weazle, VE3EAR/VE3WZL

Listening: 147.030+ and 442.075+
E-mail:    weazle-at-hurontel.on.ca
           or ve3ear-at-rac.ca
Web site:  www.hurontel.on.ca/~weazle