Aurora Links

Aurora Watching Links - For finding Aurora I look at three things. POES Auroral Activity level of 7 or higher, with 8+ being prefered, and the sun being on the other side of the earth (look at the red arrow). This brings the Aurora oval down to where it overlaps middle Minnesota well. Second I look for a ACE MAG & SWEPAM with the Bz (red line) below zero, the greater the magnatude the better. -5 is good, -10 is great, 15+ is excelent. The third thing I look at is solar wind speed to be greater than 400km sec (yellow line), also on the ACE MAG & SWEPAM plots page. There are a couple of problems with this. The POES plots tend to trail reality by an hour or two so what they indicate has generally passed. This is where guess work come into play. I look at the NOAA Space Weather site for their posterd predictions of CMEs hitting earth. I look at the movies from SOHO Solar and Heliospheric Observatory to see if there are any CMEs headed out way. They usually take a couple of days to arive. Look at the blue corona mpegs. I also check out posting at the Auroral Observation Network to see if other are seeing Aurora. Especially if they are east of Minnesota. The Short Wave Radio Map from the Solar Terrestrial Dispatch provides a good idea of where the auroral oval will hamper radio communications and tell where the Auroral displaies have a chance of showing up. I haven't used their storm alerts yet as they charge for email subscription. Much of their data is republished government data available from other sites.

POES Auroral Activity (sec.noaa.gov/pmap/).
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov).
Auroral Activity Observation Network (www.spacew.com/www/auroras.html).
ACE Real Time Solar Wind (sec.noaa.gov/ace/ACErtsw_home.html).

ACE MAG & SWEPAM 2 hour (sec.noaa.gov/ace/MAG_SWEPAM_2h.html).
ACE MAG & SWEPAM 6 hour (sec.noaa.gov/ace/MAG_SWEPAM_6h.html).
ACE MAG & SWEPAM 24 hour (sec.noaa.gov/ace/MAG_SWEPAM_24h.html).
ACE MAG & SWEPAM 3 day (sec.noaa.gov/ace/MAG_SWEPAM_3d.html).
ACE MAG & SWEPAM 7 day (sec.noaa.gov/ace/MAG_SWEPAM_7d.html).

UMich Space Weather (msgc.engin.umich.edu/spaceweather).

Current View (msgc.engin.umich.edu/cgi-bin/sw_quicklook4b.cgi).
VIS Earth Camera (msgc.engin.umich.edu/spaceweather/boy_gif_image.html).
Dials (space.rice.edu/ISTP/justdials.html).
Auroral Oval (msgc.engin.umich.edu/spaceweather/quicklook4e.html).
Short Wave Radio Map (msgc.engin.umich.edu/spaceweather/quicklook7a.html) (www.spacew.com/solar/realtime.gif).
Coutour Map of Electron Density (msgc.engin.umich.edu/spaceweather/quicklook7b.html).

Space Weather (www.spaceweather.com).
The Aurora Page (www.geo.mtu.edu/weather/aurora).
Aurora forcast maps (www.pfrr.alaska.edu/~pfrr/AURORA/INDEX.HTM).
Today's Space Weather (sec.noaa.gov/today2.html).
Solar Terrestrial Activity Report(dxlc.com/solar).
Home of the Northren Lights (climate.gi.alaska.edu/Curtis/aurora/aurora.html).

Astronomy

NASA (www.nasa.gov).
Astronomy Mag. (www.astronomy.com/home.asp).
Sky & Telescope Mag. (www.skypub.com).
Minnesota Astronomical Society (MAS) (www.mnastro.org).
The Telescope Shoppe (www.telescopeshop.com), 3402 Federal Dr., Eagan, MN, 651-688-7335. Yes this is a local Twin Cities telescope shop. They have a map on their site showing where they are. They are tucked in the lower level along the side of the strip mall they are in. The store is small and easy to miss. If your at the corner of Yankee Doodle RD and Federal Dr., park in the lot to the south east. They are a short stones throw from the intersection.
Telescope making links

Many good links on making AltAz mounts (zebu.uoregon.edu/~mbartels/altaz/altaz.html).
ATM's resource List (www.freenet.tlh.fl.us/~blombard).
Motorize Your Telescope (zebu.uoregon.edu/~mbartels/altaz/altaz.html).

Equipment

Adaptive Optics - Tip/Tilt Mirrors

Stellar products (www.stellarproducts.com).
SBIG (www.sbig.com).

Image correctors

Paracorr (www.rahul.net/amall2/tvo/paracorr.htm). 2" coma corrector and field flatener.

Mounts

Losmandy (www.losmandy.com).
Bisque (www.bisque.com).

Telescopes

Celestron (celestron.com).

Astronomy-Mall.com (www.astronomy-mall.com/Astronomy-Mall).
Stellafane (www.stellafane.com).
Terrestrial Planet Finder (tpf.jpl.nasa.gov).
Many Images of the moon (www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/pxmoon.html).
Solar Views (www.solarviews.com).
Planetary Image Atlas (www-pdsimage.JPL.NASA.GOV/PDS/public/Atlas).
Hubble Space Telescope Archive (oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html).
Hummble Site (hubble.stsci.edu).
StarStuff (www.starstuff.org).
SpaceRef (www.spaceref.com), Your space refference.
Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive (antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html).
SkyView (skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov) virtual observatory.
2MASS (www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/) and (pegasus.astro.umass.edu/GradProg/2mass.html) Two Micron All Sky Survey.
Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO) (http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/lasco.html).
AAVSO Network to Search for Optical Counterparts of Gamma-Ray Bursts (www.aavso.org/grb.stm).
High Altitude Observatory (www.hao.ucar.edu).
Asteroid Comet Impact Hazards (impact.arc.nasa.gov).

Unusual Minor Planets (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Unusual.html).
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/PHACloseApp.html). Of particular interest to me are LB16 and AN10 which will pass at a distance closer than the moon's orbit. LB16 currently only has one opposition charted so it's predicted orbit will likely change as new data comes in. It's expected to swing by in 2004. In 2027 AN10 will visit earth. It's orbit is calculated with three oppositions meaning it't much more likely to really showup ontime and in place. With further data LB16 could either get closer or farther away. When AN10's orbit was first predicted (only one opposition at the time) it's error envelope included earth. With further data it was found to just pass within the moon's orbit and miss the earth.
Forthcoming Close Approaches To The Earth (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/CloseApp.html). This is the document to look at when you want to know who will visit next and how far away. It has all close approaches to 0.2 AU away from earth or within 20% of the distance of between the sun and earth. On Sep 19th, 2000 we will have a visiter at 0.0477 AU and on Oct 31st anotehr one will pass at 0.07386 AU. LB16 and AN10 are expected to pass at around 0.25% of the distance between the sun and earth.

Mars Global Surveyor (mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/index.html).
Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) (ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mola.html). There are full data on the shape of Mars including 1 degree and .5 degree elevation data sets.
Planetary photojournal by JPL (photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov).
NASA's Origins Program (origins.jpl.nasa.gov).

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