I know partzman tried this with AC on the tube, and had null results.
Here is the DC version if anyone is interested or has time.
You could probably light the filament with a decent size NiCd battery of
1.2 Volts(see edit) instead of mains step down transformer.
Start with a high value current limit resistor 100k going down in value until you can get ignition in the tube to hold.
You will definitely need some type of spark igniter to strike the arc in the tube.
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Edit: Checked this out this morning and the gas tube ignition works very well. I used an F20T12CW lamp with 120 Volts DC on the Anode, current limited by a 12K resistor. I did need about 6 Volts DC to get a visible glow in the filament, but it will work at lower filament voltage once the arc is struck in the tube.
When the arc is struck, the DC voltage across the tube drops to about 70 volts and current is about 3 to 5 mA depending on filament voltage.
When I get time I will work up a table of Anode current vs Anode voltage vs filament voltage, etc. For this particular tube.
I am told that big older flat screen TV's have some very nice long, thin fluorescent tubes.
To strike the arc in the tube, I used a higher voltage power supply 300 to 500VDC with a 0.01 uF 1kV capacitor shunted with a 1 megohm resistor touched briefly to the Anode. The momentary charging current for the capacitor is sufficient to ignite the tube. You could use one of those piezo igniters and that would probably also work.
When I get the big transmitter up and running, I will slip the tube into the TLine and see what gives.
Just be careful, the longer the tube, the higher the Anode voltage and current, the closer you are to producing XRays at the Anode end. I think this is probably only true for highly evacuated tubes,but it would not hurt to put some CRT phosphor at the anode end outside the glass and if it glows you are getting XRay production. Gas tubes will have a lot of ions that will absorb the high speed electrons, so it is questionable how fast the electrons can actually go. Thonemann did use Xenon gas in his patent / experiment.
Be Safe
Regards
An interesting video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Jg4ooFErEand here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Bco8KRpmU
"Secrecy, secret societies and secret groups have always been repugnant to a free and open society"......John F Kennedy