Astroblog: Aurora Alert- Geomagnetic storm and Aurora watch tonight (8-9 October)

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Aurora Alert- Geomagnetic storm and Aurora watch tonight (8-9 October)

Last night saw some awesome auroral displays throughout Tasmania, parts of Victoria and aurora were even reported in SA, with the best activity on the early morning of the 8th.

The geomagnetic storm is ongoing, and may last until the evening here in Australia.

The Australian IPS has issued a geomagnetic alert for a G1 class storm NOW and the NOAA site has a predicted G2 storm from a fast moving solar wind stream from a coronal hole. Currently the magnetic field is -2 nT, Velocity: 749 km/sec Density = 5.0 p/cc . K index is currently 5 overall. These conditions are promising, and if they hold until night fall then Tasmania and Southern Victoria may see aurora as they did last night. maybe not as good as last night, but well worth watching out for.

Dark sky sites have the best chance of seeing anything, and always allow around 5 minutes for your eyes to become dark adapted.
As always look to the south for shifting red/green glows, beams have been reported consistently over the last few aurora and a large green "blob" has been seen.

The all sky aurora camera in Northern Tasmania at Cressy may be helpful.
http://www.ips.gov.au/Geophysical/4/2

SUBJ: IPS GEOMAGNETIC DISTURBANCE ALERT ISSUED AT 0655 UT ON 08 OCT 2015 BY IPS RADIO AND SPACE SERVICES FROM THE AUSTRALIAN SPACE FORECAST CENTRE

MINOR (G1 - MINOR) GEOMAGNETIC DISTURBANCE IN PROGRESS (K OF 5 REACHED)
PRELIMINARY AUSTRALIAN REGION K INDICES FOR 08 10 15: 353
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FOLLOW THE PROGRESS OF THIS EVENT ON THE IPS SPACE WEATHER STATUS PANEL, HTTP://WWW.IPS.GOV.AU > SPACE WEATHER

Further monitoring at
http://www.ips.gov.au

Labels: aurora