Re: Mysterious Streamers - Mystery Solved (fwd)

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:59:42 -0400
From: Daniel Kline <daniel_kline@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Mysterious Streamers - Mystery Solved (fwd)



Tesla list wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:18:05 -0700 (PDT)
> From: C. Sibley <a37chevy@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: Mysterious Streamers - Mystery Solved
> 
> That is exactly what happened.  I talked to the guy who took the picture.  He had set the exposure manually and intended to take a picture without the flash.  He recalls the flash going off accidentally once.
> 
> I took my camera out to my driveway and set the exposure to 2 sec, forced the flash on and took a picture of my truck.  After the flash I purposley moved the camera field of view across the street light.  Same exact effect.
> 
> http://www.wackorama.com/teslalist/streetlightstreamer.jpg
> 
> There is no question now that the wierd effect is a street light that was acidentally panned across the frame.  

Exactly. The bright streamer is the reflection from the front surface of 
the camera lens, and the faint streamer is the reflection from the back 
surface of the camera lens. You can see this effect in an ordinary 
mirror if the glass is thick: a bright image of yourself, and a fainter 
ghost-image of yourself, slightly offset about the thickness of the 
mirror glass from the bright image.

As with the rest of Tesla-coiling, the simplest answer is probably the 
right answer ;-)

Dan K.