[Tony Sales]

clouded over to the north, nothing to see went out for a bit, but nothing

[Dave Hancox]

Shame Tony, Same here still under cloud, The Oval seems to have pulled back for now nothing to say it wont bounce back again without warning.

NOAA Scale Current- None Past 24hrs - G3
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

[Col Cooper]

curses! thin layer of cloud to the north coupled with full moon and weakening storm = no sighting

helios oval is pretty large atm. hope any of you with clear skies are getting a view

[Bazmundo]

With the return of full ACE data, the new generation Ovation products are back online, showing still good chances for sightings (nothing here due to cloud, pfff!). Kiruna is also kicking off again, >-900nT is a significant pulse! Est Kp has dropped significantly, but the SWPC Boulder version does have a US bias and a lot of the still functional European magnetometers have registered the same pulse as Kiruna.

[Dave Hancox]

Well i'm on 1800-0300 next four nights so will post any sightings I get if we ever get clear skies and I can get a signal on the mobile.

[Bazmundo]

We've possibly had a bump from a fast CME this morning (see Aurora Watch thread), and the magnetoshock (the effect that strong particle winds has on the magntopause) is currently blazing away with high energy. This simulation of the magnetosphere using data from ACE is quite accurate as to the features so I've annotated one of this morning's plots to show a few bits referred to often in space weather.

I'll be taking the cam (& tripod, Tim!) to work tonight, as the recent activity could keep the auroral oval well charged and the clouds look to be more sparse for my area.

Other images from that simulation can be found here, though I haven't managed to get their 3D simulations to work....

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[Bazmundo]

Auroral plots from POES satellite data are back online: http://www.swpc.noaa...pmap/index.html

[Dave Hancox]

Been some nice Aurora for some. http://www.aurorasky.../live-camera/9/

Been a bit of activity on Aurora Watch uk today
http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/



Real Time Oval https://cssdp.ca/ssd...ts/rt_oval.html

Just off nights today so hoping cloud clears, looks like it might, and maybe a spike on the Aurora would be nice.

[Bazmundo]

I was just checking for any indications of aurora tonight, which are next to none as the relatively fast ambient solar wind has slowed down a lot today. Had to laugh at this though

Quote

#--------------------------------------------------------------------#
# HALO CME ALERTS from the SIDC (RWC-Belgium), generated by CACTUS
#--------------------------------------------------------------------#
The latest halo CME alert generated by the CACTus software package (2012/03/24, 00:36UT) is a backside event and will not affect the Earth.

This after a BGSauroraAlert tweet was the featured quote in Private Eye.

[Dave Hancox]

Sunspot 1429 due to return and still active.


NOAA NWS Space Weather Prediction Center

Space Weather for the past 24 hours has been at low levels. Region 1444 produced a lonely C-class x-ray event. The geomagnetic field has been at quiet levels for the past 24 hours.

SWPC forecasters are still anticipating the arrival of old Region 1429, late on 28 March.This region remains very active and last time around produced several Space Weather events.

For more information, please visit us at www.spaceweather.gov

[Bazmundo]

Bad boy sunspot AR1429 is within line-of-sight over the Sun's western limb now, as evidenced by X-rays detected from a minor flare at 09.53z this morning (there's since been another minor flare from a full-face sunspot - no danger). Reviewing the previous 4 days SOHO C3 imagery shows that AR1429 is still quite angry, spewing out the two larger CME events round on the rear western side, and even setting off a hemispheric wave (not visible in that imagery). Further activity is expected from this region though perhaps not as intense as before?

SIDC belgium also indicating a halo-CME from AR1444 (27th, 0312z) should reach us tomorrow.

[Bazmundo]

AR1429 was crackling with C-class flares yesterday, but has calmed down so far today. Either way it's appreciably beautiful at the moment, with a side-on view of the closed loops and prominence eruptions. Try this link (below), from clicking the "AIA" beneath the x-ray events along the top of the Solarsoft Latest Events log. I'd recommend the flash animations with their enhancements below the image, of which the B-W Linear (Reversed) is best for watching the flexing in the loops:

http://sdowww.lmsal....2708_78037/www/

Hard to fathom how much plasma is tied up in those loops, and if one of them snaps during an eruption it'll probably be a decent CME.

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[00ctober]

Looks like we all (on here) missed out on witnessing this event from the 27th/28th.

http://nightskyhunte...7th%202012.html

Skies were completely clear for most of us too.

[Tony Sales]

seen those photos too, I was totally unaware anything was happening

[Dave Hancox]

I went out that night until 0230 nothing great was visible from here. I posted reports taht had been on Twitter from Dundee Fife and Northumbria - Took some shots but can only just make out the green and reads after a lot of post processing. must have missed its peak.

[Bazmundo]

00ctober, on 31 March 2012 - 12:19, said:

Looks like we all (on here) missed out on witnessing this event from the 27th/28th.

http://nightskyhunte...7th%202012.html

Skies were completely clear for most of us too.

Tony Sales, on 31 March 2012 - 13:35, said:

seen those photos too, I was totally unaware anything was happening

There was a slight chance owing to a strongly negative polarity, but had it faded the aurora would've gone with it - unlike when the magnetosphere is subject to a shock and subsequent after-effects for up to a day.

[Col Cooper]

rather spectacular solar flare today. looks like an active area about to rotate round.

http://spaceweather....16apr12/304.mov

[Bazmundo]

Col Cooper, on 16 April 2012 - 21:17, said:

rather spectacular solar flare today. looks like an active area about to rotate round.

http://spaceweather....16apr12/304.mov

More imagery and animations available here: http://sdowww.lmsal....5046_93785/www/

Looks awesome doesn't it!

[Bazmundo]

The International Space Apps Challenge is underway this weekend, with teams from around the world answering a challenge from NASA to design a variety of software and apps to represent space science to the general public, the Met Office are involved and are currently streaming their presentations from Exeter. A lot of other teams are also streaming or chatting including the ISS, scroll under the feed to find Exeter and others, with regular updates on Twitter, etc.

It looks as though we could get some extremely good new data products from this, with "Aurora Layer for Google Earth" for instance...

[Dave Hancox]

Sunspot AR1476 is crackling with M-class solar flares and appears to be on the verge of producing something even stronger. Has capability of producing X class flares. http://www.spaceweather.com/