Whoah! Awesome pic!

Great pic! Is this that Chinese Philips that went pop the other day? Running a naked arc tube is like allowing a monkey to fly a plane, very very dangerous!

Thanks Paul and Tom! Yes it is, I saved the arc tube for experimentation LMAO yeah it's very dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. I used eye protection here as I didn't want arc eye again, the only worry which still remained was the overpowering smell of ozone!

LOL I know you get a slight whiff of ozone from UV fluorescents such as germicidals and blacklights but I'm guessing this was pretty intense! I once saw a broken MBF burning in an open street lantern one night! Full output!

Yeah it was really awful! Horrible overpowering metallic smell to the air! I've heard of Mercury and Halide lamps getting broken in Gymnasiums from balls, no one thinks anything of it since the lamp still operates and later on have ended up with burnt skin and eyes!

Brave man , the fact you have it at really low pressure make the UV even worse!!!!, good pic though, I hate that ozone smell, possibly the worse smell ever.

I love the smell of ozone! so fresh and clean smelling! In my mortuary I have a ozone air sterilizer (contains a 15w 12" T5 germicidal lamp) and it runs constant - I love the pure fresh air smell!

LOL - I think I now understand your username! Isn't ozone bad for you though?

Yeah it is highly oxidising and can iritate the lungs, long term exposure can cause respiritory illnesses too. Large quanitities of it can easily kill you!