Lightning Photography

Lightning discharges generate a wide range of electromagnetic radiations, including radio-frequency pulses. The times at which a pulse from a given lightning discharge arrive at several receivers can be used to locate the source of the discharge. The United States federal government has constructed a nation-wide grid of such lightning detectors, allowing lightning discharges to be tracked in real time throughout the continental U.S.
In addition to ground-based lightning detection, several instruments aboard satellites have been constructed to observe lightning distribution. These include the Optical Transient Detector (OTD), aboard the OrbView-1 satellite launched on April 3, 1995, and the subsequent Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) aboard TRMM launched on November 28, 1997.