Observation and analysis of transient luminous events in the Earth's atmosphere

The paper presents a general overview and analysis of conditions for the occurrence of transient luminous events in the atmosphere, namely, termed sprites, elves and blue jets. The main features of their appearance and manifestation are obtained. Using two video surveillances of transient luminous events obtained on the base of Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Department of Atmospheric Physics, in August 2012, we estimated the glowing atmosphere energy of these processes. The complex of observational equipment consisted of a video camera Watec 902H with different wide-angle lenses, a frame grabber Pinnacle Dazzle DVC100, a GPS receiver and a notebook with appropriate software. In order to estimate the atmosphere luminescence as from an extensive surface object the calibration curves from unfocal images of Vega (Alpha Lyrae) are plotted. The spectrum of the star, atmosphere absorption and spectral sensitivity of the camera are taken into account. For the analysis of features of the atmosphere luminescence over a storm we plotted the isophotes in the images.