Aurora Borealis and all that...

[(RIP) Bin Ridin]

Northern Lights visible in Donegal...

www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0108/breaking7.html?via=mr

www.donegalskies.com/

 

[Fanum]

Something I'd love to see......Nearly all of my travels have been south rather than north, but one day maybe

If anyone gets any piccies, whack'em up

 

[bogman]

Ever listen to aurora, first video shows normal morse code, vhh signals are dramatically affected by aurora and unreal distances can be worked (Im a radio ham though not too active at the moment)
The 2nd video shows the Doppler effect where voice and morse signals are distorted, anyone with morse can read code, it all starts after about 45 seconds, to the untrained voice signals will be almost intelligible, a station in the UK is speaking to another in Holland
Normal morse signal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yFEoodwxts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNW0BxxSCQU
Best aurora I can remember was 13 March 1986, but ive only seen visual aurora from Cork twice though its affect on radio signals can extend to Italy during intense storms, best times of the year seem to be around the equinoxes
Best seen away from city lights and when there is no light pollution from the moon, aurorae can be green, red or in rare cases white in colour

 

[bogman]

Your chances of seeing the aurora increase as you move north, solar flares that occur near the middle of the Sun as viewed from earth spew out charged matter that takes about 72 hours to reach earth
Look at space.com weather and you will see sunspots rotate with the sun, these increase and decrease in size

Spaceweather

Sunspot number 1391 is an obvious one to watch


Geomagnetic activity is monitored by Magnetometers here on earth
http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link[Magnetometers]=Data/

When the chart swings minus and reads from about -500nt its time to start observing, this figure can quickly drop to -1000nt or more

A 3 hourly updated K index shows the level of activity, you need it to be at least 4, 5 to 6 is intense, its low at the moment at 2 so no risk of visible aurora down here though it would be farther north like say at Tromso in northern Norway

Auroral oval around Antarctic

Aurorae extend way beyond earth to Neptune, Jupiter and here at Saturn

Aurora Buddy is an excellent free smartphone app, available for the Iphone (crap-phone) too




(VHH in previous post should read VHF)

 

[rce]

Useful site for predicting chance of NL

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/pmapN.html anything getting near the white to orange is favourable.

 

[(RIP) Bin Ridin]

Donegal basks in Aurora Borealis..

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0124/1224310672211.html?via=mr