I know they come down this far south but not that often. One gal from Divide, CO said she was looking out for auroras but didn't see any but a guy from Fort Collins, CO, 80 miles north, saw them and photographed them. I will be looking out for them but the kp index has fallen to 5.3. I looked at the pictures on SpaceWeather and enjoyed the Park City images. If we get another alert, I may just pack my camera and telescope and head north. Debbie

From: Canopus56 <canopus56@yahoo.com> Date: 2005/09/11 Sun PM 03:24:47 MDT To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] AstroAlert: Middle Latitude Auroral Activity Warning Issued

-- astrodeb@charter.net wrote:

...

With a latitude of 37 degrees 05 minutes, all I can do is enjoy others' astrophotos. . . .

Here's a picture on spaceweather.com from Sept. 10 taken in Park City. http://spaceweather.com/aurora/images2005/11sep05/Jolley1.jpg

Even if you are living at a lower latitude, like as far south as Tuscon, when the geomagnetic storms reach a kp of 8-9 (as they did last night) the red tops of the aurora can be photographed from southern Utah. - http://www.sec.noaa.gov/info/kp-aurora.html There are many such photographs on spaceweather.com from Arizona and New Mexico.

In Salt Lake City, we can generally see the aurora when the kp index is between 7-9.

Short of subscribing to the $6 per month Spaceweather.com telephone service, that will call you when a geomagnetic/auroral storm is ongoing << http://spaceweather.com/ >>, you can monitor likely storm times during periods of very high activity (such as the next few days) by using data products of the Space Environment Center of NOAA.

Basically, look for likely kp events of 7 or higher for northern Utah and 8 or 9 for southern Utah:

1) Space Environment Center current kp index You can follow the 30 minute time delayed geomagnetic index - http://www.sec.noaa.gov/today.html#satenv

2) Costello index. The most useful index during periods of high activity is the 30-90 minute Costello geomagnetic index predicator at - http://www.sec.noaa.gov/rpc/costello/index.html

This will give you a 30 minute prediction for when a high 8-9 kp storm might reach you latitude.

3) POES auroral activity map. You can follow the POES auroral activity maps and watch for when the auroral "tail" swings to low latitudes and is pointed at Utah during the night - http://www.sec.noaa.gov/pmap/index.html

4) U of Alasksa GSE Javascript forecast movie. A more obscure forecast tool (that I can give you more info on) is the U of Alasksa GSE Javascript forecast movie that gives - on a 24 hour time scale, some idea of when a CME will hit the Earth and cause a display. http://gse.gi.alaska.edu/recent/javascript_movie.html

5) Space Environment Center High Kp Warning Email. You can subscribe to the SEC's kp warning data product (set to the highest level). They will email during high geomagnetic storms. Limit your subscription to the WARK07 and ALTK09 data products. Northern Utah subscribers might want to add the ALTK08 and ALTK09 warnings. https://pss.sec.noaa.gov/ See - http://www.sec.noaa.gov/alerts/AlertsTable.html#geomag

- Canopus56(Kurt)

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