This is an image of a sprite rising up from the Earth"s limb, photographed from the Space Shuttle on September 15, 1993. The sprite appears to originate from a thunderstorm that is just barely on the other side of the Earth"s limb, so part of the sprite might still be behind the limb. That portion of the sprite that is visible here is approximately 47 km tall, and is about 1850 km from the shuttle.
Note that the dark part of the image that is blocking out the bottom of the sprite, in the solid surface of the Earth. The hazy layer that serves as a backdrop for the sprite is the earth's atmosphere, and the glowing arc at the very top of the atmosphere is called the Airglow Layer.