Wednesday 18 March 2015

On my ‘Bucket List’

Video of the aurora australis taken by the crew of Expedition 28 on board the International Space Station, its sequence of shots was taken 17 September 2011 from 17:22:27 to 17:45:12 GMT, on an ascending pass from south of Madagascar to just north of Australia over the Indian Ocean.

This is something else I’ve never seen, so hoping we are going to be in luck while we’re down South, where we’re most likely to see it – Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights.

aurora-australis   © 2015 Aurora Service

Right now, the aurora is predicted to be: Kp 7.33
In 10 minutes, the aurora is predicted to be Kp 7.33

What do Kp numbers mean?
The Kp number is a system of measuring aurora strength. It goes from 0 to 9 (0 being very weak, 9 being a major geomagnetic storm with strong auroras visible).
So when your looking at the aurora forecast page, you want to see high Kp numbers. The higher the better. Anything above (and including) Kp5 is classed as a geomagnetic storm.

No comments:

Post a Comment