Aurora Prospects 2012

Iancar29

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

what's the best time to go out and look? i live up by the naul myself, but there's still a good bit of light pollution from dublin this way (& some from balbriggan)

The best time is when the KP peaks... but thats hard to guess as updates arent so regular. So best to just keep an on on here http://solarham.com/index.htm
U will be looking NOrth. Away from Dublin , trust me , at 550 asl its one of the best places to be in Leinster.

Fully Established

Just checked the KP index and its too weak only showing 2 so no chance at seen any thing from Ireland .

dirtyghettokid

cheers. i've been waiting my whole life to see the northern lights. still pretty doubtful, but it would be awesome to finally see them.
you heading out yourself up this way?

PixelTrawler

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

cheers. i've been waiting my whole life to see the northern lights. still pretty doubtful, but it would be awesome to finally see them.
you heading out yourself up this way?

Don't wait for them to come to you
Buy a plane ticket and go north... not much time left this season but next winter should be strong too

Saw them in Iceland last september, fantastic sight - life long dream fulfilled...

dirtyghettokid

Solyad wrote: »

Don't wait for them to come to you
Buy a plane ticket and go north... not much time left this season but next winter should be strong too

Saw them in Iceland last september, fantastic sight - life long dream fulfilled...

i'm from southern ontario, and never saw them when i was a kid, due to being 44 degrees north.. but the night before i flew home for a visit last october, they saw them in the city i grew up in & i was raging i had missed them by one day!
one day i'll fly up to NWT for a looksee

Iancar29

Fully Established wrote: »

Just checked the KP index and its too weak only showing 2 so no chance at seen any thing from Ireland .

True but as i said the IMF still hasn't dipped south . That's when the full potential of the storm hits . I definitely think it's gonna get up to KP 7 at least , it's just when the nobody knows.


Yes I might be heading out about 10 if things are looking good .

PixelTrawler

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

i'm from southern ontario, and never saw them when i was a kid, due to being 44 degrees north.. but the night before i flew home for a visit last october, they saw them in the city i grew up in & i was raging i had missed them by one day!
one day i'll fly up to NWT for a looksee

Allways a balls - like here... you can be sure of cloud when they would be visible

dirtyghettokid

check out the pictures from today's flickr blog!
"the sky's ablaze with light tonight"

http://blog.flickr.net/en/2012/03/08/the-skys-ablaze-with-light-tonight/

PixelTrawler

utter b@st@rds!

Iancar29

Solyad wrote: »

utter b@st@rds!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150636730241718.445894.631736717&type=3 :rolleyes:

muckish

100% cloud cover here in Donegal. Can't even see the moon!

My take on tonight: It ain't going to happen. Stay home.:( The weather Gods are not going to cooperate tonight.
There's nothing happening in Abisko, Tromso, Jokkmokk either so we are missing nothing.

Keep watching the data www.spaceweatherlive.com and see if anything erupts during the night.
There has been an X1 flare from sunspot region 1430. No data on whether it's Earthbound.

Iancar29

IMF DIPPING SOUTH




BTW... ANOTHER X- Class flare !!... details soon!

To Alcohol

Whats the chancing of seeing it in the Kildare area tonight?

delw

Iancar29 wrote: »

IMF DIPPING SOUTH




BTW... ANOTHER X- Class flare !!... details soon!

Hey Ian,
can I ask what the significance of IMF going south is?

muckish

delw wrote: »

Hey Ian,
can I ask what the significance of IMF going south is?

It's not in relation to the geographic direction of the IMF but the polarity of the IMF. Think of it like a magnet. When it strikes the magnetosphere around Earth, depending on the polarity direction of the IMF it will either be rebuffed around the Earth through the magnetosphere if it's positive. Try to stick the North ends of a bar magnet together; impossible. If it's got a South Polarity it will be attracted in towards the earth. It's like it cancells out the normal north polarity of our magnetosphere and creats a hole/crack. This is where the solar wind can flood in behind it and create the aurora by interacting/exciting the Oxygen & Nitrogen particles in the atmosphere. Again with the bar magnet analogy, stick the south end with a north end and they pratically jump out of your hand to come together.

As that great physicist Paula Abdul did say. Opposites Attract

lolie

Kp-7.67 now and the IMF gone south.

sparrowcar

Dam you daylight :mad:

PixelTrawler

Nice shots from Donegal last night

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Donegal-Weather-Channel/161588103950947

Cloud cover not looking good for later http://www.sat24.com/?culture=en

PixelTrawler

My god, look at this shot... 1s exposure.
Must have been some fast moving aurora

http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=JAsup3nAsna-AskarsdAsup3ttir-IMG_7055-3_1331249583.jpg

Iancar29

Solyad wrote: »

My god, look at this shot... 1s exposure.
Must have been some fast moving aurora

http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=JAsup3nAsna-AskarsdAsup3ttir-IMG_7055-3_1331249583.jpg

Thats something like what i saw when up in abisko, it only lasted for a minute or less though and we had our cameras brought back in...
Bet it went on for much longer than a minute though this time.

I knew the IMF would flip eventually , feckers to it being daylight though! ha

PixelTrawler

Yeah there was one night in Iceland when it went nuts too.
Couldnt get over how fast it moved...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/solyad/sets/72157627708715502/

What was most amazing was how blasé the Icelanders were... "oh its the lights again" and then back inside! Completely indifferent to it...

muckish

Solyad wrote: »

Nice shots from Donegal last night

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Donegal-Weather-Channel/161588103950947

Cloud cover not looking good for later http://www.sat24.com/?culture=en

These photos do not look like an aurora. Bit like those Kildare photos we were debating a few weeks ago.

PixelTrawler

They are weird alright. Somebody been fiddling with the sliders in lightroom?

If you look at google maps, the golf course is behind that beach, might be some high powered lights. Now I look closer, they do seem to originate very low.

But it even has a very aurora colour cast to the puddles in the foreground.
Hard to know

PixelTrawler

http://full.storm.no/tv2ver/borealis.aspx

Norwegian site predicting:
"Auroral activity will be high(+++). Highly active auroral displays will be visible overhead from Tromsø, Norway to as far south as Dublin and Hamburg, and visible low on the horizon as far south as Paris and Munich."

muckish

Solyad wrote: »

They are weird alright. Somebody been fiddling with the sliders in lightroom?

If you look at google maps, the golf course is behind that beach, might be some high powered lights. Now I look closer, they do seem to originate very low.

But it even has a very aurora colour cast to the puddles in the foreground.
Hard to know

COuld be the football pitch in Malin Town. The wrong white balance with different types of lighting can give that green colour. So I don't think it's the true colour of the light.

Iancar29

EXAMPLE... :rolleyes:

https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/207463/195765.jpg

Iancar29

GOOGLE EARTH AURORA TOOL!

This is awesome people!

Go to the link , save the file to your desktop , open up google earth ( if u have it first obviously)
Then on Google earth go to file open, and open up the file

AND BAM! AURORA TOOL!

http://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/downloads/googleearth.php

Tornando9

muckish wrote: »

These photos do not look like an aurora. Bit like those Kildare photos we were debating a few weeks ago.

Considering it was cloudy last night i doubt its the Aurora. I'd say its artificial light combined with a filter on the camera possibly.

Iancar29

We should all leave our thoughts here then.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0309/aurora.html

eskimocat

Heart breaking looking outside at total grey cover, in daylight, knowing that the Aurora are shining brightly at a level 7, thats a level 7 folks.... over half of Ireland could be looking at it!!!!!!!! Jeese :rolleyes: Sigh