Re: Speckled Light Field in Wing Strobe

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Mon, 26 Apr 1999, brian whatcott wrote:

>  Then I noticed that as the wing tip strobe flashed, it was
> illuminating a field of prominent light speckles which varied
> randomly each flash. They numbered perhaps fifty, in a visual field
> extending through a circle of diameter perhaps six wing tip chords
> centered on the wingtip.

Could it have been raindrops from higher clouds?

Recently I was standing in the rain in the dark next to a fire truck.  The
red strobe lights gave light impulses which were brief enough to "freeze"
the three-dimensional array of falling spherical droplets.  (I'm reminded
of Dr. Frazer's "bad science" webpage, and the popular conception of
raindrops as streamlined shapes with sharp points behind, rather than
small spherical lenses.)


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