spaceweather.com ... auroras..

[brockenspectre]

Hi all

As some of you know I love sky phenomena and although I have yet to realise my ambition of seeing an aurora for myself just thought I would share this latest news:

QUOTE
AURORA WARNING: A solar wind shock wave swept past Earth on Sept. 7th at approximately 1630 UT (12:30 EDT). The interplanetary magnetic field turned sharply south when the wave arrived, which means a geomagnetic storm is likely. Sky watchers--especially those in northern Europe, New Zealand and southern Australia--should be alert for auroras after local nightfall on Saturday

UNQUOTE

Have any of you seen auroras while flying? As they are geomagnetic, does the occurrence of an aurora play havoc with any instruments? What, if any, are the know side-effects?

:D

['%MAC']

Saw one in the lower 48 states while flying into Minot ND. Flying up in Alaska you see them quite often, each time is beautiful, and I’ve never become ambivalent in seeing them. Even seen red, which is less common. I remember the first time I saw the aurora, while in Canada driving up to Alaska; One of those moments in life.

Flying wise, one tends to use the aurora as an horizon, and they often aren’t straight. On homeward bound trips, late and tiered I’d notice myself not using the ADI and looking outside, definitely one of those illusions, and very strong. Forced myself to go back on instruments, it’s at least as influential on the senses as a sloping cloud deck. Anyhow, hope you see one soon – you won’t forget.

[Wino]

Saw everthing from green to deep magenta tonight as I coasted in over Norfolk (yes VIRGINIA!)

In years of flying the north Atlantic and Alaska I never saw one as bright as I saw tonight. Everyone was talking about it on the frequency.

Cheers
Wino

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Not sure where you are, but my family and I have witrnessed two auroral events from near Reading, UK. The first, about 10 years ago, was pretty impressive, with bright rays across the sky, although not up to the standards achived further north. Last year there was a smaller event one evening when the sky was glowing red.. Watch for the peak of the sunspot cycles (every 11 years) because that's when we're more likely to see them in the lower latitudes.

[ETOPS]

brockenspectre

Flew back from SFO to LHR over the night of Friday/Saturday and saw the Aurora as advertised. We were over northern Wyoming as it got dark and the green light from a huge display was clearly visible - it remained so until we coasted out over Greenland a few hours later.

As for radio interference it knocked out HF reception so badly that we couldn't contact either Gander or Shanwick at all! As contact with these agencies is required for flight in MNPS airspace I used the Sat phone to dial Gander ATC. The controller was a little suprised to get me on the "landline" but nevertheless read me the clearance and gave me some VHF frequencies for Iceland.
Only later near Scotland when the sun came up did we get normal HF contact.

[canberra]

i was at goose one night waiting for a c130 to arrive. the sky was 8/8s, my hf set sounded like it was being jammed. i rang our ground radio bloke, he knew straight away what it was. he told me that if the sky wasnt completely in cloud id see a light show like nothing else. the c130 crew told me when they landed that it was the best auroora theyd ever seen.

[brockenspectre]

Thanks for replies guys.

If any of you are interested in the source of my info it was one of my fave websites that sends out mails of interesting stuff it is called Spaceweather.com (http://www.spaceweather.com).

I maintain a website of pics for a List of folks who own Shiba Inu dogs (my dog's breed) and the first pic is a silhouette of a Shiba in an aurora - submitted to keep me quiet by an Alaskan Lister .. it is viewable at Shibapix (http://members.aol.com/shibapix) .

:D

[pigboat]

Used to fly a lot between 50 and 65 North, and saw aurora plenty of times. Sometimes the displays were awesome. Interesting note on sunspot activity. Solar storms sometimes cause electrical transmission problems in this part of the country. Most of our electricity is generated by hydro power from dams on northern rivers, thus there are some hefty transmission lines running north and south with the towers anchored in the bedrock. Apparently the solar activity will cause some changes in the earth's magnetic field, affecting electrical transmission. Had an engineer try to explain it to me once, but I got lost after about two minutes.:confused:

[ASW24]

Yeah.
Here in Finland there's a research going on about aurora. They are recording the sound of this phenomena. Yep. That's true almost everybody who lives in Finnish Lapland say that you can hear the sound of aurora. And this is no joke and these people are serious. Saw it in the news where they played a recording.
beautiful

ASW

[PETERJ]

FELLOW SKYGAZERS OUT THERE MAY BE INTERESTED IN THE 2 FOLLOWING SITES

1 WWW.FOURMILAB.CH Click on YOUR SKY Gives starmaps for anywhere on Earth from any location for any time (including historical time) and/or MOON/EARTH VIEWER. stunning shots of Earth from moon and moon from Earth -any location any time and lots more.

2 www.aurorawatch.york.ac.uk Provides free e-mail notification of likely aurora activity on subscribing (free)

Regards and good watching

www.fourmilab.ch
www.aurorawatch.york.ac.uk