David's Astronomy Pages (All Sky)
|
Latest AllSky |
All Sky Camera |
Home Page |
Aurora Watch |
David's Astronomy Pages (All Sky)
|
Latest AllSky |
All Sky Camera |
Home Page |
Aurora Watch |
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
Link to last night's video 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.
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| This Web Page : | Aurora |
| Last Updated : | See image annotation for latest date |
| Site Owner : | David Richards |
| Home Page : | David's Astronomy Web Site |
