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Aurora Borealis Over Scotland & Northern England Tonight & Tomorrow Night

YouCannotBeSirius

By YouCannotBeSirius
in The Astro Lounge

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Paul M

Paul M

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Posted

Something not right again.

An aurora that bright would have been morr widely seen.

The other image taken that night in the link to the article looks more like ribbons of clouds silhouetted against the brighter sky.

My guess is clouds illuminated by moonlight / twilight and a bit of iffy white balance stretched into false colour?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

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YouCannotBeSirius

YouCannotBeSirius

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11th January

Tonight’s estimated aurora level:

Level 3 – Medium

Forecast:

Auroral activity will be at medium levels. Weather permitting, aurora displays will be visible overhead or on the horizon in Mosjøen (Norway), Oulu (Finland), Luleå (Sweden) and Reykjavík (Iceland).

Comments:

A CH HSS should become geoeffective tonight. When it was monitored by Stereo B, 11 days ago on the far side of the sun, it didn’t look particular strong. So it should provide Kp3, perhaps kp4 levels, at best.

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astronymonkey

astronymonkey

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Hi all,

I tend to use a long range plan when looking for aurora which doesnt usually work but is as follows...

firstly I watch for solar activity using spaceweather.com as this gives a good comprehensive overview of solar activity, in particularmsun spots with the necessary magnetic field types to generate x class flares and also coronal holes which tend to spew out solar particles aswell. Obviously the location on the disk is important as those which are central can score a direct hit on the earth but with solar rotation you can often keep an eye on thinhs which look promising as they slowly turn earthward.

with this approach there is always and element of excitement as a big spotmor coronal hole turns towards us especially if at the same time a flare erupts.

Once a flare is on its way the type is also important as c class are weak, m class moderate and x class the biggies. And there are subdivisions from 1-9 in each class except x types which go from 1 to infinity with those above 5 being pretty rare and the biggest ever being about x 22 ish. Even x1 only occur abiut once a month but can come in clusters if there is a particularly active sunspot.

so if I know a flare is on the way then the speed will determine how soon it will arrive and spacemweather.com often say how fast the big ones were travelling so I do the maths to work out how many hours it will take to travel 93million miles to earth.

the next step for me is wating for it to arive and the ACE satellite is the earths early warning station, located just less than a million miles away between us and the sun. This satellite tells us the solar wind speed, and density, which for me a speed above 700 and a density above 15 gets me interested. In addition to this the interplanetary magnetic field, and strength is also measured by ACE and a strength of above 15 begins to get interesting but there must really be a continued negative field which ideally I want below -8 south.

if ace gives these signs then within the next hour im outside looking up and watch for magnetometer readings as the disturbance in the magnetic field plays up.

so although I sometimes look at the kp this is more of amglobal measure but I like watching the live data to try to work out what might happen !

Cheers

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YouCannotBeSirius

YouCannotBeSirius

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http://www.softservenews.com/en/aurora-borealis-breaking-news/noaa-two-solar-storm-watches-news300029.html

STORM WATCH No. 1 (Possible strength, 5 Kp):

      Storm watch No. 1 begins on 14 February 2014 at 00:01:00 -- in 25 hours and 57 minutes (this info is automatically in your local time)

      The watch starts at the above time and continues for 24 hours.


STORM WATCH No. 2 (Possible strength, 6 Kp):

      Storm watch No. 2 begins on 15 February 2014 at 00:01:00 -- in 49 hours and 57 minutes (this info is automatically in your local time)

      The watch starts at the above time and continues for 24 hours.

The long term accuracy of "moderate storm watches (6 Kp predicted) is better, with a storm hitting the predicted mark about two-thirds of the time." Rutledge noted there is generally a higher degree of certainty when NOAA predicts a moderate storm as opposed to a minor one. The moderate storm watches imply a more clear-cut earth directed CME. The second storm watch is a "moderate" storm watch.

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astronymonkey

astronymonkey

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Things seemed to have got lively last night with a decent negative imf which was quite strong and the solar wind was dense but not that fast. I had thin cloud cover when I looked out at midnight and the moon was washing the sky out but given the conditions of the imf last night I wouldnt have been suprised if the auroral oval had slipped south enough for something to be visible from the uk.

cheers

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YouCannotBeSirius

YouCannotBeSirius

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got me some pics of tonight aurora over the solway firth cumbria looking north over the water to scotland ... ps how do i post a pic up ??

Nice, I would love to see them. I have a friend that lives near the Solway Firth, I don't know if she saw anything though, she may not have been looking.

I'm not sure how you post a picture on this forum, I haven't done it before myself - sorry! There's probably a button for it somewhere.

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Paul M

Paul M

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It's a shame it didn't happen a night later. We're off to our country mansion to the  south of Penrith tonight for the start of the caravan Season. Nice dark sky location with great views to the north.

Still, can't complain. I got a brief view of last nights offerings. I think I was a bit late by the looks of it. I only saw the end of the display. 

And in over 40 years of looking it's only my 3rd definite sighting of an aurora :D

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Mowbs

Mowbs

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I had my scope out last night and saw the aurora, it's the first time I've seen it but you probably miss a lot of what's going on in the sky when you're sitting in front of the TV. I had to drag my eyes away from the super nova in M82 to look at it though.

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YouCannotBeSirius

YouCannotBeSirius

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Something is better than nothing! It's a shame the same isn't occurring tonight as we have clear skies again.

I was out 8-9pm when most of the sightings were being reported, but I was busy looking at Jupiter's GRS for the first time and didn't see the reports until it was too late, I still kept an eye but saw nothing with or without the telescope this time, unfortunately.

I can't complain, I saw the 'green curtains' overhead in Iceland last February. But I'd like my family in the UK to be able to see some of it at least. Better luck next time!

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