Daytime alert changes

Eagle-eyed followers may have noticed that we’ve made a change to our alerts. From now on, any alerts issued during “daytime” will look slightly different: Old version: New daytime version: We’ve tweaked the text to avoid any confusion about being able to see the aurora during daylight hours. As you’ll probably know, seeing aurora requires…

Receive alerts by Telegram messaging service

As a trial we’ve added Telegram to the list of services from which you can receive our alerts. Telegram is a cloud-based messaging service with widespread support for all the major mobile phone platforms and computer operating systems. There are native mobile apps for Android, iPhone (and iPad), and Windows Phone. The messaging program can…

The October 25th Aurora Red Alert

On October 25th, the UK received an astonishing early Christmas present. At 17:48 UTC (18:48 BST), AuroraWatch UK issued an extremely rare red alert, indicating that it may have been possible to see the aurora from the entirety of the UK. There were in fact two distinct periods where geomagnetic activity went above red alert thresholds:…

CME drives hidden aurora

Strong geomagnetic activity was recorded during the night of 13-14 October, resulting in an amber alert being sent out to our subscribers. High activity lasted for several hours and nearly reached our threshold for a red alert (falling just short of the required 200nT, maxing out at 190nT). The activity was the result of a…

Round up of UK aurora 25-26 Sept

It’s been a great couple of days for aurora viewing in the UK. In our second aurora round up, we overview the geomagnetic activity that occurred over the last couple of nights (25-26th Sept) in the UK, along with plenty of pictures from our followers and what we think was the cause. AuroraWatch UK alert status On both…

The aurora is out, now how do I see it?

AuroraWatch UK constantly strives to send out accurate alerts of when the aurora might be visible from the UK, and we let you know from where you might be able to see it too. So picture the scene: we’ve just issued an amber alert. That means that it could be possible to see the aurora from Scotland, northern…

Coronal hole drives recent aurora

This is the first blog post from Dan Billett, a Ph.D. student in Lancaster’s Space and Planetary Physics group. Dan has just joined the AuroraWatch UK team and is interested in public outreach so you will, no doubt, be hearing more from him in the future! — Nathan. On Monday 5th September, NOAA’s Space Weather…

Round up of UK aurora 01-02 Sept

In this first, of what will hopefully be a regular occurence, we are going to “round up” the auroral activity witnessed from the UK last night (01-02 Sept). Below, we’ve collected some info on the auroral display, such as what caused it and where it was seen from. Enjoy! AuroraWatch UK alert status Through the…

Red alert cancelled

Red alert cancelled. Red alert: aurora likely. Issued 2016-08-23 13:25 UTC (14:25 BST) by AuroraWatch UK using SAMNET LAN2 data from Lancaster, UK. AuroraWatch UK issued a red alert at 14:25 (BST) today based on magnetic field data from the LAN2 (Lancaster) magnetometer. Unfortunately, the readings were spurious and not related to geomagnetic activity. It,…

AuroraWatch UK gets a camera!

At AuroraWatch UK we’ve always enjoyed looking at your photos of the aurora but, up until now, we’ve never captured any of our own. Today, however, we have some exciting news to share: AuroraWatch UK is getting its own aurora camera! Thanks to funding from Lancaster University’s Faculty of Science and Technology, the AWUK team…