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Let Your Computer Watch For Auroras!
titus-g writes "Well what with this being the 11th year and all, and getting to the right season for those of us in the N hemisphere to enjoy some nice nights outs getting hypothermia, how about building your own automatic aurora detector? Details are available at http://angwin.ece.uiuc.edu/~haunma/ I would link direct to the detector page but the waterfall pics are quite nice (details and links are near the bottom in the projects section)." Well, for those of us who are frightened by waterfalls, here is the Aurora Monitor Project, "[a]n automatic notification system designed to help you observe the northern or southern lights."
I'd check out the forecast linked to so many times already in this thread.
Even so in texas you are probably out of luck.
How about a boycott the MPAA RIAA etc tech worker strike for October so we can all head Due North.
~ppppppppö
For all those aurora watchers out there, you may wish to look tonight. Both of my favorit sources are saying it's a go for likely observations tonight. I like to see a Pmap index of 8 or higher with the red zone covering some or all of Minnesota. A 7 should technically do it for my area, but I've never seen anything durring a 7. The Ace (MAG_SWEPAM) red line needs to be in the negatives, the more so the better. I also like to see the solar wind speed (yellow) high, but it isn't tonight. I'll be rechecking conditions about 9:30pm (Central/US) to see if a run out of town to observe is a good idea.
But hey it's explicable, long nights and all that...
Why do you think the Finns thought up IRC.
~ppppppppö
My PCS phone can get e-mails, I should sign it up to the mailing list. They say it's a low traffic list, so that shouldn't be a problem. Also, my phone truncates at 100 char's, but the sample message truncated is
The aurora monitor in east-central Illinois has declared a level 1 alarm, on a scale of 1 to 3, with 3 being the highest lev
so that shouldn't be too much a problem. Should be pretty cool. We'll see.
--
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Wow. This is a really cool idea, but what sort of information is given through the mailing system? I'd rather not get an email every few weeks and rush out to see the display only to find out it was very weak. It would be cool if the mailings gave intensity and an estimated viewing region (say, latitudes and such). I live in Texas, so it's gonna have to be one hell of a display for me to see anything.
Bah! Living in Fairbanks, Alaska we get to see the aurora quite often (right now we have less then 11 hours of daylight and are losing about 7 minutes per day). There's been times I've seen it driving home from work. Of course, they look the best when it is about -40 or so and the light drowns out the stars... way cool ;-)
For a forcast, see the UAF Geophysical Institute's Aurora Forcast page.
If you aren't far enough north to see them then I'd recommend a few weeks off sick and a holiday in Alaska, they don't get this good that often, and well, once you've watched one you are never going to forget it. Don't mean to be blasphemous, but well, it's almost better than beer...
(ok for one moment I will try not to be flippant) It will touch your soul, you will always remember it.
How many 11 years do you live anyway?
~ppppppppö
n/p 's what I'm here for.
~ppppppppö
I've seen them, when I lived in Michigan. Auroras, IIRC are mostly centered around the earth's magnetic poles(north only?). Electrons entering the atmosphere encounter radation from the sun (best during times of sun spot activity, and apparently there's a big spot ATM). Looks like glowing curtains, which may move gracefully or shift suddenly with brilliant light emission.
Last one I witnessed was so bright, around Bay City, that it nearly blinded me while driving home from a late hacking session.
--
Chief Frog Inspector
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Soon after reading this article my housemates told me to have a look outside. Sure enough there were 'The Northern Lights', the first time that I'd ever seen them. It was an amazing sight. BTW, I'm in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
The last time I saw an aurora it was preceeded by blue acrid smoke coming out of the back of my monitor. Then there was this loud flash. Not sure if I can handle to much more Aurora monitoring.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Good Idea! looks like I've started a little early though :)
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
We already know it's in Illinois.
Instead of getting laid in the real world, you're using your computers to look at areolas.
(from a female geek)
-- Anne Marie
This program sounds like a great idea! I've been searching for pictures containing women's areolas quite often, but this program will let my computer find them on its own. My days of surfing thehun.net, asianthumbs.org and all are over! Slashdot, thank you for the incredibly interesting article on software that can distinguish nipples from regular skin, thereby getting rid of gigabytes of unnecessary pictures of women who are covering these areas. This is a major paradigm shift in the field of AI design. I have tested this program, and it works wonders, it seems to make my pants feel tight for some odd reason though...
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
Keep up the good work, its neat to see genuinely useful sites like this.
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