2013-03-17

hamcam showing green horizon

my northern horizon monitoring camera is showing a green horizon www.davegradwell.com/hamcam.html

Update (2) - expected activity forthis evening

Current NOAA forecasts are for unsettled conditions until about 21:00ut then severe storm levels from 21:00ut until midnight. So hopefully we'll see something on this side of the world later.

Large displays of northern lights have been reported over the US during the morning.

Again stay tuned as this story changes by the hour

long wait 'til sunset

god i hope this doesnt die away, huge magnetic displacements, all of ireland & most of uk should see aurora at this rate www.davegradwell.com/magnetometer.html

CME update and aurora predictions

When a piece of Sun hits the Earths magnetic field its impact is usually just visible on my magnetometer as a little "nick" in the graph. The size of this impact would suggest a sizable event has taken place and as a result we may be in for a better than "normal" display of aurorae.

These events are notorious to predict and only time will tell what we get. As a guide -

The K value on the top of the graph: values of 5 mean a good display for the north of the country and values of 6 and above mean northern lights for most of Ireland.

The graph: Watch the red graph, displacements of 70nt (1.5 boxes) are needed for displays over most of Ireland.

and of course stay tuned to Surfing the Sun

Impact!

Our long awaited CME has just impacted our magnetic field (about 0600UT)  lets hope that by this evening we will have a good display of aurora.

The impact (called a sudden impulse) is clearly visible on my magnetometer www.davegradwell.com/magnetometer.html

Stay tuned
Dave Gradwell

2013-03-16

cme update

latest info suggests the cme will impact around midnight on the 17th. keep monitoring the magnetometer for live data www.davegradwell.com/magnetometer.html

Green skies for St Patricks's weekend?

displays of the northern lights are expected over the weekend. a coronal mass ejection (a piece of sun hurled into space) is due to impact earth Saturday evening sparking aurorae. as usual watch my magnetometer page www.davegradwell.com/magnetometer.html to see when it hits. alerts will be given here and on my Facebook page. stay tuned....

2013-03-13

A solar starfish and some big spots

Just like a starfish, sunspot AR11690, has grown back on of its arms. The filament on the left collapsed yesterday producing a C2 flare and coronal mass ejection, but today it's grown back. Also today some bigg spots are turning onto the disc from the east. Click on each image to see a more detailed view.




Dave Gradwell

2013-03-12

Solar activity and a filament collapse


The top image shows the collapse of a magnetic filament that occurred today. You can see that the left hand "snake" has disappeared by 11:07 and replaced by bright areas of flaring (a C2 size). Also on the Sun today were a few nice prominences. Seeing wasn't great but it was nice to be out imaging again.