Starter 'Penning'(argon neon) gas mixture in a sodium lamp being coaxed to emit different colour over the tube length using high frequency HV and varying the mark space ratio.
High voltage project. It's not often a project works better than expected first time. Built this to produce 60kV but it looks like it can go to 80kV although I don't know if the insulation will hold.
Some of these Starlings (circled) are cleaver and know something you don’t from looking at the wires. These lines are normally at 123kV. Birds don’t like sitting on lines of 25kV and above, so these starlings have worked out that the power is actually off.
This is a small tube filled with low pressure Argon and a small amount of Iodine. Crystallised iodine is visible on the tube wall on the right. The gas is being ionised with an external HF HV supply. An old disk drive magnet contorts the beam.
Homemade bad neon
The longest tube has mostly neon gas while the next has air and neon in the tube. The smallest is mostly Argon. They are all running in series on and oil burner transformer.