The aurora that didn’t happen

As many of you will have seen, there was some pretty big hype last week about a massive solar storm which would mean the Northern Lights would be visible from much of the UK: What was the reason? On Wednesday 20 March, a coronal mass ejection (CME) was launched from the Sun. CMEs are huge…

Changing the Perspective: Looking at the Aurora from Space

In this inaugural blog post by Dr. Maria-Theresia Walach, a Senior Research Associate in Lancaster’s Space and Planetary Physics group, we learn about how scientists study the aurora from space – including the recently revived IMAGE spacecraft. When we go aurora hunting, we need to be in the right place, at the right time and…

Aurora captured near Wooler, Northumerbalnd by Tony Robson.

A night of the shy aurora

Yesterday, we posted that a G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storm watch was in place for 04-05 December. This storm watch was issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency who are responsible for space weather forecasts in the US, and was the result of a recurrent coronal hole. This coronal hole was the source of a…

How to set up Twitter notifications

Twitter can be used to receive instant AuroraWatch UK alerts. In the following we describe the steps to get the Twitter alerts set-up on your phone. Step 1: If you don’t have one already, create a Twitter account. Step 2: Download the Twitter app to your smartphone and log in to your account. Android iOS…

New Shetland magnetometer

In collaboration with the Shetland Amenity Trust, and thanks to funding from Gradconsult, the AuroraWatch UK team are delighted to announce that we have installed a new magnetometer in Sumburgh, Shetland. This new magnetometer is located in the grounds of the Sumburgh Head lighthouse, making it the most northerly magnetometer in our network. Arguably, it…

Flares and CMEs galore!

As you will have seen on our Facebook page, several interesting solar developments have taken place recently and they may bring some awesome auroral displays in the coming days (hopefully!). In this blog post, we’ll run through exactly what’s happened and why we’re excited. Updates in red. M5 solar flare – 04 September 2017 A…

A disappointing night

We had such high hopes. Predictions were good, the best we’d seen for a while, and the early stats were promising but the aurora fizzled out before we had a chance to see it. Our long summer evenings played a small part here. With so few hours of darkness, catching a sighting of the aurora…