Original poster: David Speck <Dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
When running my small coil outdoors for my Halloween "Mad Scientist"
display, on breezy nights I've seen a visual display much like the
results of the rotating mirror photos. The moving sheet of air
results in two streamers close together, then a space, then two or
three more streamers -- you can visualize the 120 Hz modulation of
the streamer brightness and current just by looking at the bands of
the streamers in the breeze -- a neat effect.
It works best when the arc is being directed to a grounded stick,
and the arc path is perpendicular to the direction of the airflow.
Perhaps you could reproduce this indoors with a big box fan. Anyone
up to try? Might need some sort of arrangement to make laminar
airflow -- don't know if a box fan output would be too turbulent,
but it might work if it were far enough away.
Dave