I'm fortunate in having a clear view of most of the northern horizon from my
observatory in NE Scotland and can seen the Aurora Borealis several times a
year. Since 2014 I have been recording these auroral events with an AllSky
Camera and documentating them here. The number of
nights with observed Aurora activity per year depends on cloud cover and the sun's
activity level. In 2015 aurora was recorded on 21 nights, just
beating 2016 (19 nights).
The best ever Aurora display seen from my observatory occurred on the night of
27th/28th February 2014. It also
happened to be
the first aurora that I recorded with my AllSky Camera. It was a
great night ! One of the pictures from the night is shown below - just a
shame that the camera is monochrome only.
For more pictures and a video
recording from this spectacular night goto
Aurora - 2014-02-27 /
2014-02-28.
Method
An Oculus All Sky Camera,
mounted on a mast beside the observatory, takes 180° all-sky pictures
continuously every 30s during the hours of darkness. Data is
processed in realtime, and panoramic pictures of the northern view are
created from the original fisheye images. Images are
monochrome only. Pictures are automatically uploaded to website at
intervals through the night (AllSky Images).
Videos of AllSky View and Northern Sky View are automatically generated
and uploaded each morning (AllSky
Video).
Aurora can either can either be picked up by scanning
the northern horizon visuallly for indications of a developing auroral
arc (see picture below), or by viewing the latest N. Sky image (see below), or by
looking at key leading indicators such as this
realtime graph of
Magnetometer Data from Scandinavia containing data from TGO,
DTU & FMI. Geomagnetometer activity at rvk (Rorvik, 64.95°N), dob
(Dombas, 62.07°N), sol (Solund, 61.08°N) and kar (Karmoy, 59.21°N) stations
are used as indicators for potential auroral activity that may be
visible from my Observatory situated at latitude 57.32°N ). Data
from other sources such as the information accessed via
SpaceWeatherLive.Com is
also consulted.
For each night where auroral activity has been detected a description,
representive pictures, videos and geomagnetic and other data is collated
on to an individual aurora night page (listed under Aurora
Observations, 2014-2021).
Live All-Sky data and Key indicator data is placed on a single webpage (Aurora
Watch) for quick convenience.
The current/latest
northern view image is also shown below:
Latest Image
Other Uses of AllSky Camera
Whilst the AllSky Camera is used for recording Aurora, it's main role
is in support of Observatory Operations, providing an automatically
generated Star Count and Cloud Cover estimate (see
Latest NightSummaryPlot).
The camera has recorded a number of other atmospheric phenomena during its
years of operation (such as a Bollide,
Meteors,
Atlas V Rocket Burn,
MoonBows,
Light Pillars,
NLC,
Lightening & other Weather ) together with a range of
insects & birdlife.
