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Aurora & Sun Activity Resources Thread


kar999

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Posted
  • Location: Sth Staffs/Shrops 105m/345' & NW Snowdonia 219m/719'
  • Location: Sth Staffs/Shrops 105m/345' & NW Snowdonia 219m/719'

Real time data for monitoring potential Aurora activity

I hope you find it useful.

[Aurorawatch UK direct linking not allowed from Spring 2011]

Other useful indicators (credit NOAA SEC)

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This map shows roughly how high the Kp index needs to be for you to possibly see the Aurora at your magnetic latitude. (Clickable Version here) KP Map

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Edited by shuggee
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Posted
  • Location: Sth Staffs/Shrops 105m/345' & NW Snowdonia 219m/719'
  • Location: Sth Staffs/Shrops 105m/345' & NW Snowdonia 219m/719'

One more from spacew.com

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Green (NIL to low levels of auroral activity) to brown/orange (low to moderate levels of activity) to red (moderate to high levels of activity).

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  • 2 months later...
Posted
  • Location: Sth Staffs/Shrops 105m/345' & NW Snowdonia 219m/719'
  • Location: Sth Staffs/Shrops 105m/345' & NW Snowdonia 219m/719'

Sunspot cycles are approximately 11 years and 1980 was a solar maximum. There would probably have been many geomagnetic storms during the early 80’s. I can’t be specific about any particular storm as I wasn’t actively interested in Aurora then. As you correctly point out, Aurora are rarely seen in the south of the UK so the storms normally have to be severe for this to occur.

I have read records of when the KP index was higher than 7 going back to that time, but that is no guarantee that the Aurora was visible here.

http://www.spacew.com/gic/guidance.pdf (Refer to appendix B.)

If I come across any specific information for the UK for the early 1980's I'll let you know.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W

Don't be fooled by the sunspot maximum years - a good CME (coronal mass ejection) can happen any time. SOHO data usually gives a day or so adavanced warning before it interacts with the Earth's magnetosphere.

I'm reasonably place at my location and have witnessed several good shows. This one was in January and developed into an even better show later on but I'd already maxed the camera memory. Believe me, that red 'flame' was intense. I now have a better camera and a fast lens so I'm just waiting for the long dark winter nights.

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21 Jan 05 Milnathort, Kinrossshire.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 months later...
Posted
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W

2005 has been very quiet for UK aurora watchers, nothing much really since last Jan

However, for anyone wanting to know what it's all about or for us fanatics suffering withdrawal symptoms there's a fantastic work in progress gallery been created by spaceweather.com covering the last 5 years

Aurora Galleries

I promise - you will need a whole box of tissues to wipe up the drool :cold:

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Posted
  • Location: Maghera - Ireland
  • Location: Maghera - Ireland

2005 has been very quiet for UK aurora watchers, nothing much really since last Jan

However, for anyone wanting to know what it's all about or for us fanatics suffering withdrawal symptoms there's a fantastic work in progress gallery been created by spaceweather.com covering the last 5 years

Aurora Galleries

I promise - you will need a whole box of tissues to wipe up the drool :D

Not at all! I have seen many auroras over 2005. Ok they may not all be crona displays but an aurora is still an Aurora. Did anyone see the display on halloween night. Well it was the biggest of 2005! Heres a few of my images and 3 with fireworks in them

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post-1622-1136056314.jpg

post-1622-1136056382_thumb.jpg

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Posted
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W

Not at all! I have seen many auroras over 2005. Ok they may not all be crona displays but an aurora is still an Aurora. Did anyone see the display on halloween night. Well it was the biggest of 2005! Heres a few of my images and 3 with fireworks in them

Love the pics! Fond memories of N. Ireland and the fireworks on Haloween :angry: I was clouded out for 31st here, we did have a minor display on the 12th September which just managed to produce a few miserable green smudges

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Edited by frogesque
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  • 9 months later...
Posted
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W

Please could anybody tell me in laymans terms how to interpret the charts. I like to look in particular at the KP Index bar chart. I often notice an orange bar. Does that mean aurora may be visible from the British Isles and if so which parts?

I've clicked on the map to work out my magnetic latitiude as well, but I couldn't see how to use this figure. I am afraid I am a complete novice at this sort of stuff so please bear with me!

Would love to see some aurora here (- bit to expensive to travel further afield at the moment) but as I live in North Worcs I guess I am too far south?

Cheers

D

Hi Daisy,

Generally you would need a Kp of 9 to see the aurora that far south which is roughly 49 deg magnetic North. You also need a good dark sky location with no light pollution from the NW to the NE. The orange bar is an indication of some activity and could possibly produce aurora in Shetland. It really needs to be red for any chance on mainland UK. For my location, East Central Scotland, for instance I need a minimum of Kp 7 for anything like a good show.

We are in solar minimum at the moment so there's not a lot of activity but keep checking because if anything is likely to happen someone will come on to spread the news!

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  • 1 month later...
Posted
  • Location: Larbert
  • Location: Larbert

Maybe, just maybe..

AURORA WATCH: Sky watchers, be alert for auroras. A coronal mass ejection (CME) is expected to brush past Earth tonight, sparking a mild geomagnetic storm. The display will probably favor high latitudes--e.g., Scandinavia, Canada and Alaska--but it could descend as well to northern-tier US states such as Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.*

The source of the CME is sunspot 930, which has been exploding regularly since it first appeared on Dec. 5th. The sunspot is slowly turning to face Earth. As it does, it might send more CMEs our way, and they would hit head-on rather than merely brushing past. By next week, Northern Lights could reach deep into the United States.

* Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin are lower latitudes than the UK.

Also:

CME activity associated with the M6 and X6 flares on 06 December is expected to cause occasional major storm periods late on 08 December and 09 December. Disturbed conditions are expected to continue through 10 December.

http://www.sec.noaa.gov/today.html

http://www.spaceweather.com/

SO far there have been two X Flares (X9 and X6.5) and four M Flares (M1,M1,M6,M3) that sunspot 930 has produced. Any such explosion in the next couple days as the spot faces more towards earth, will most likely produce some nice aurora and openings on VHF.

The solar flux is now at 103. The past few days has been over 100, the first time since April 2006. A very good sign indeed.

The solar wind is expected to increase, keep monitoring conditions.

http://www.solarcycle24.com/

Edited by Mondy
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  • 10 months later...
Posted
  • Location: ilminster Somerset
  • Location: ilminster Somerset

just to keep this thread alive and as a casual observer of solar weather i thought i post this link

<a href="http://sidc.oma.be/SWB/#download" target="_blank">http://sidc.oma.be/SWB/#download</a>

its a solar weather image web browser dead easy to install

anyway its all pretty quite at the moment as we had for solar minimum in the next couple of months

here is an image 9/10/2007

and one from 9/10/2000 to show the differance between min and max

Edited by blackdown
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  • 5 months later...
  • 1 year later...
Posted
  • Location: Upper Tweeddale, Scottish Borders 240m ASL
  • Location: Upper Tweeddale, Scottish Borders 240m ASL
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  • 8 months later...
Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

UNH-led Experiment Hurtled into Aurora Above Norway by NASA Rocket

DURHAM, N.H. –- A team of scientists led by Marc Lessard of the University of New Hampshire Space Science Center launched an instrument-laden, four-stage sounding rocket from Norway’s Andøya Rocket Range into aurora about 200 miles above Earth early Sunday morning (Dec. 12, 2010), just before the two-week launch window slammed shut. For the 10-minute flight, a 65-foot-long Black Brant XII rocket arced through a funnel-shaped region of Earth’s magnetic field lines before landing some 900 miles downrange in the Norwegian Sea. The science data were transmitted to a ground station during the short flight.

http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2010/dec/ds13nasa.cfm

The ground-based photograph of the rocket was taken by Kolbjørn Blix Dahle of Andøya Rocket Range. The inset photo of the aurora was taken by Fred Signeres of The Kjell Henrickson Observatory.

A shot of the December 12 RENU launch taken from downtown Andenes, Norway.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: East Ayrshire
  • Location: East Ayrshire

Here's a few sites not mentioned yet that may be of use.

geomag.bgs.ac.uk - British geological survey: magnetometer data and local k-indices from around the UK.

lmsal - assortment of data compressed onto a single page.

CSSDP - Canadian Space Science data portal: showing the real time auroral oval based on Canadian magnetometers

kho.unis.no - Kjell Henriksen observatory: Based in Svalbard using noaa costello data to create a map based forecast. (click aurora forecast)

Solar Observatory - Handy site with EIT and Lasco gif images.

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  • 3 months later...
Posted
  • Location: Whaley Bridge - Peak District
  • Location: Whaley Bridge - Peak District

flickr is a good site for stunning Aurora images that may not make it into the MSM or general forums as this. Such pics as this can be found with a simple search..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/flyforfun/5671405761/

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  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...
Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) used a digital camera to capture several hundred photographs of the aurora australis, or “southern lights,” while passing over the Indian Ocean on September 17, 2011. If you click on the movie linked above, you can see the flowing ribbons and rays below as the ISS passed from south of Madagascar to just north of Australia between 17:22 and 17:45 Universal Time. Solar panels and other sections of the ISS fill some of the upper right side of the photograph.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=52287

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  • 4 months later...
Posted
  • Location: Upper Tweeddale, Scottish Borders 240m ASL
  • Location: Upper Tweeddale, Scottish Borders 240m ASL

For the record and future reference from Potty:

Stumbled across this aurora forecasting model. Some links in the description to help you understand where the data comes from too, which is always helpful.

http://helios.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/

post-1669-0-62662200-1330366625_thumb.pn

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  • 2 months later...
Posted
  • Location: swansea craig cefn parc 160 m asl
  • Location: swansea craig cefn parc 160 m asl

Are we entering a Maunder minimum type dalton plunge with colder winters and colder spring and poor summers ?http://en.wikipedia....Maunder_Minimum

Edited by keithlucky
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