Nah, I am always checking in, especially considering we are arount the Solar Maximum. I believe that the best shows come as it winds down iirc. I am in southern England, and we get it's hazy glow more often than people realise. :) I have caught a good show here before, though. I'll dig up pics from last year in a bit. I get alerts so I am always waiting for it.
fossilesque
joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
The joy of aurora hunting:
Stay up until 3:30 the other night. When it exploded again it gave a giant middle finger to Europe:
Noonish the next day:
And into the eve:
But lo, the density died and the pillars are diffused. My friend caught a little bit on the horizon in camera. I saw a little bit of red but nothing stunning. Very faint. You can just see the pink on the horizon. This is facing north.
Np, I had to reopen it on a PC too! :)
Open the image in a new window.
Here is the link to make it easier: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg
Considering people have been quietly boycotting working with them for over a year now, it seems a little late.
A moderator made a really good post about flux ropes here: https://community.spaceweatherlive.com/topic/3947-ar14100-m8-20250531-cme-g4-watch/page/24/
Oh yes, the big ones that put on shows tend to come around fall and spring equinoxes.
G Scale: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation
You can see the predictions forecast at the top of any of the NOAA Aurora dashboard pages.
Prediction oval: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/aurora-dashboard-experimental
Data:
- NOAA: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products-and-data
- https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/data-access
- SOHO: https://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/data.html
Check NASA and ESA for boatloads more, you'll probably have to search for the specific satellites. -> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Solar_System_probes
You'll have to visit the sites of the ground stations that are shown on spaceweather to get their data as well. It's out there.
New satellites:
Lmao, like I said, I've still got hope. Last I checked, NOAA was predicting a G4 (logorithmic G1-5 categories, kind of like hurricane ratings) storm at a 75% confidence through tomorrow. Look for kp 7+, southern winds, and a G4 storm rating on the main page tonight. The tool tips are really good.
Btw, the NOAA does really awesome predictive forecast maps of where you can see it, but I've caught them far beyond the oval, so it is quite conservative I think.
Yeah, there's a ton of data around and actually quite a few tools for space weather on github as well. People have been trying to figure out the nuances of solar cycles pretty intensely. Also, a new satellite was launched recently that is really powerful for solar monitoring. I'll post the links in the next comment.
You've still got time! Between 10pm and 2am are the golden hours for this sort of thing, but look north as it gets dark. Use your phone camera with a long exposure to check. :) I think we may still be quite lucky. Beware of a lot of the posts in real time there, nobody knows what's going to happen until the L1, remember, so it's a lot of guesswork! It's kind of half the fun is trying to figure out what is going on with it. The stars have to align just right, pun intended.
I am entropy.
So in general, it's satellite observations (SOHO, STEREO) for initial predictions and observations of CMEs***. CMEs are constantly happening, but in every direction, not just at us. If one is pointed at us, once the initial shock hits the L1 point* it's more predictable. That's where satellites like ACE and DSCOVR sit about 1.5 million kilometers upstream from Earth, giving us roughly 15-60 minutes of warning once a solar wind disturbance arrives there.
The shock models and reports look like this:
The flux ropes** which bring the spectacular shows come after. These twisted magnetic field structures in coronal mass ejections (CMEs) produce some of the most dramatic aurora displays when they interact with Earth's magnetosphere in just the right way. Conditions like solar wind speeds, etc. affect visibility as well.
Before the L1 point it's a lot of high level guess work and modelling including ground-based solar observations and magnetometer networks, but those are more important after L1. The ground based stuff are some of the first metrics you see on the Solar Weather dashboard. After the L1 point, though, it's countdown time for the good ones. The app sends out alerts for big ones like this.
A caveat, space weather is one of those fields where there is a bit of an art to the science... The sun is a bit like a cat, we haven't quite figured out all of it's quirks and it doesn't always do what we expect it to do.
* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point
** https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_tube https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/flux-ropes-sun/
Oct 10, 2024, just after midnight right above our little town!