Chance of seeing auroras tonight

[PakledHostage]

NOAA's space weather prediction centre is forecasting continued Major geomagnetic storms (G4) for tonight (June 22nd, 2015, UTC).

Edited June 22, 2015 by PakledHostage

[PakledHostage]

Deleted outdated report from March 17th.

Edited June 8, 2015 by PakledHostage

[Sampa]

For where I live...not a chance (I live too far North or South)

[vger]

Unless I've been misreading these things all my life, the red line that curves around the oval is the the LOWEST point you need to be in order to have a chance at seeing anything. So, even in that first picture, only the U.S. states touching the Canadian border will be able to see it?

[Sampa]

Unless I've been misreading these things all my life, the red line that curves around the oval is the the LOWEST point you need to be in order to have a chance at seeing anything. So, even in that first picture, only the U.S. states touching the Canadian border will be able to see it?

Yep, DEFINITELY too far south! I live in California, U.S.

[PakledHostage]

Unless I've been misreading these things all my life, the red line that curves around the oval is the the LOWEST point you need to be in order to have a chance at seeing anything. So, even in that first picture, only the U.S. states touching the Canadian border will be able to see it?

You're looking at the wrong image. The top one was for March 1st. The next one down is for today. You'd have to be in northern Russia or Scandinavia to see any of today's show.

Maybe I should have started a new thread. I thought it better to continue the old one, but maybe it is confusing?

[vger]

You're looking at the wrong image. The top one was for March 1st. The next one down is for today. You'd have to be in northern Russia or Scandinavia to see any of today's show.

Maybe I should have started a new thread. I thought it better to continue the old one, but maybe it is confusing?

Naa, it's fine, though, if you plan on doing this regularly whenever there's a good spike, you could just edit the original post to include the latest update and then add a new post at the end to bump it. Something like this should actually be stickied though.

[Nuke]

im right on the edge of that but chances are its gonna be overcast. last time i saw them i was out in the boonies with zero light pollution. they were pretty impressive.

[PakledHostage]

if you plan on doing this regularly whenever there's a good spike, you could just edit the original post to include the latest update and then add a new post at the end to bump it.

Good idea. I'll keep that in mind.

[Dkmdlb]

Unless I've been misreading these things all my life, the red line that curves around the oval is the the LOWEST point you need to be in order to have a chance at seeing anything. So, even in that first picture, only the U.S. states touching the Canadian border will be able to see it?

Check the post date on that first one.

[Kryten]

Yep, DEFINITELY too far south! I live in California, U.S.

Never say never- aurorae have been visible as far south as Cuba before. Of course we'll have bigger things to worry about if that happens again...

[Tommygun]

Yep, DEFINITELY too far south! I live in California, U.S.

Never say never- aurorae have been visible as far south as Cuba before. Of course we'll have bigger things to worry about if that happens again...

CNN was saying it "could" go as far south as Tennessee or Oklahoma (about lat. 35 degrees, that's about Vandenburg AFB in Ca. ), but that was much earlier today.

Well we have a small storm front in California anyways, so we won't see the end of the computer age coming.

[vger]

Never say never- aurorae have been visible as far south as Cuba before. Of course we'll have bigger things to worry about if that happens again...

The last aurora I saw was in Buffalo (which is only about a half hour from Canada), and that came from the flare that crippled Africa's power supply.

[PakledHostage]

Well we have a small storm front in California anyways, so we won't see the end of the computer age coming.

I don't think it will be much to write home about this evening here in North America. I think the show's over. To my amateur forecaster's eye, we still have a strong geomagnetic storm (G3) as of this writing, but the ACE satellite data doesn't show conditions conducive to strong auroras.

[tygoo7]

I saw them tonight but they are pretty much gone now. They were beautiful!

[PakledHostage]

That's great! Did you get any pictures? Did anyone get pictures?

[lajoswinkler]

I'm not sure if I have seen them last night, but I've noticed a faint, deep red glow low on the north where we usually don't have any light pollution. It was not cloudy. I couldn't take a photograph of it. Maybe it was not aurora. I really don't know.

[tygoo7]

That's great! Did you get any pictures? Did anyone get pictures?

I wish I could have! My phone camera was too dark so pretty much all the pictures came out black.

EDIT: Found a picture one of my friends took.

Edited March 18, 2015 by tygoo7

[Deutherius]

Argh! That one time aurora can be seen all the way from the middle of Europe and of course I sleep through it.

[PakledHostage]

I'm not sure if I have seen them last night, but I've noticed a faint, deep red glow low on the north where we usually don't have any light pollution. It was not cloudy. I couldn't take a photograph of it. Maybe it was not aurora. I really don't know.

The camera can see auroras a lot better than the human eye, so if you ever have any doubt, take a photo. 30 seconds at f/4.0 and ISO 3200 (EV -6) should be plenty.

I took the photo below out the window of an airplane. It was a only a 2 second exposure at f/3.5 and ISO 3200 (EV -2). The aurora in that case just looked like a smudge on the horizon, but then my eyes weren't dark adjusted either.

[kurja]

I got to watch them at a reasonably dark spot, on a lake ~15km from towns, main roads or industrial sites, it was pretty good, lights covered the whole sky from horizon to horizon. Saw some good colour with naked eye, at moments it was very bright, clearly illuminating the landscape. Best auroras I've ever seen where I live (~60.5 degrees northern latitude). I took a lot of pictures, also made a time lapse video, hadn't tried that before and didn't shoot enough pictures :/ Anyway I uploaded it on vimeo if you want to see it.

zenith:

(is it possible to embed vimeo player here?)

Edited March 22, 2015 by kurja

[Tommygun]

(is it possible to embed vimeo player here?)

Yes, look for the paper airplane symbol in the upper right of the video display where you first linked to.

Press the symbol and a popup window will show, next copy the "Link" not "embebed".

Nice video.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Tommygun

[kurja]

Yes, look for the paper airplane symbol in the upper right of the video display where you first linked to.

Press the symbol and a popup window will show, next copy the "Link" not "embebed".

Nice video.

https://vimeo.com/122651015

I don't get it, I used

[url ] https://vimeo.com/122651015 [/url ]

And got a normal hyperlink to the url, when I quote your post it seems to be the exact same code??

edit - Ah, 'video' bbcode did the trick.

Edited March 22, 2015 by kurja

[PakledHostage]

For anyone who might be located in a favorable location, (i.e. far enough north to see auroras but far enough south that it actually gets dark this time of year), NOAA's space weather prediction center is forecasting that the current major geomagnetic storm (G4) will continue over the next few hours. People in the northern UK and southern Scandinavia might get a show tonight if they're lucky.

EDIT

As of this writing (~0230/23Jun2015 UTC), activity is back up to G4 "severe storm" levels. According to the Space Weather Prediction Center, G4 means the following effects can be expected:

Power systems: Possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems will mistakenly trip out key assets from the grid.

Spacecraft operations: May experience surface charging and tracking problems, corrections may be needed for orientation problems.

Other systems: Induced pipeline currents affect preventive measures, HF radio propagation sporadic, satellite navigation degraded for hours, low-frequency radio navigation disrupted, and aurora has been seen as low as Alabama and northern California (typically 45° geomagnetic lat.).

EDIT 2

I went out to see if I could photograph something, but the city lights were too bright. I could make out a greenish tinge on the horizon, but nothing worth writing home about. Those of you on the Canadian prairies right now and away from city lights might have better luck:

Edited June 23, 2015 by PakledHostage

[kurja]

Yeah doesn't get dark here, no auroras or astrophotography of any kind until late autumn for me.