Aurora over Ireland right now

Hi Keith, was fast asleep by 1.30am,
it was great to got out and catch it, when I seen your report yesterday I went out and could see nothing, but I live in town, so took a chance and hoped into the car and hit out of town, Im glad now I did

For CURRENT magnetic activity over Ireland (not Kp which is forecast based on previous 3 hrs) got to my new flux gate magnetometer page www.davegradwell.com/magnetometer.html .

3 graphs are showing magnetic displacement in x,y, and z axis. Y axis (red) is best indicator of aurorae. Z axis generates ground currents (these were the ones that electrocuted telegraph operators during the Carrington Event in 1859)

It mozys along and then starts to pulsate when theres magnetic actvity, much like a seismograph. K values are on top and also a colour bar at the bottom - green normal, yellow unsettled and red storm.

I also give alerts on facebook and my solar blog

Dave Gradwell

Thanks for sharing this Dave. What is the normal range for example if we readings varying +/-50 is this normal activity? To put it another way, what values inditacte a possiblity of aurorae?

Hi Mark

Normally a spike of about 70nT or more (nano Teslas = unit of magnetism) gives an observible aurora. I'll put up what a quiet day and an active day looks like shortly. If you want a quick reference k5+ or a red bar at the bottom means check for aurora


HTH

Examples on the page now

DG

Looks interesting Dave.
What equipment are you using to generate this data?