Re: Cosmic Challenge

[Stephen Puckett <spuckett@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Wier (famous in the P3D maillist) is part of a group trying to 
take stereo pix of atmospheric events such as auroras (aurorae?).  
I had a discussion with him about taking pix of a recent event that 
might (but didn't) reach here in Oregon.  From Bob Wier on Aug 27:

"Hi Stephen  -  The auroral stereo base
looks like 5 miles or so would give a reasonable sense of
depth. The problem being of course the sync. Some options
that have been discussed are two people with cb radios, some
kind of data connection (possibly wireless), etc. I don't
know if anyone has actually managed to do it yet."

He went on to say that another problem would be sync'ing up the
area of sky to be covered by the photo.

You may want to contact him at wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

BTW a local outing club cancelled their Leonid Star Party because:

"Astronomy wonks have issued increasingly pessimistic forecasts 
about how much meteor activity will be seen from North America.  
The latest we saw said that there would be only a few hours of 
activity, on November 17, during daylight hours, most visible 
from Asia."

Hope this helps.  Let us know of your results.  8-)
-------------------

You who are in northern climes may wish to practice tonight on an 
anticipated aurora display:

                 LOW LATITUDE LATITUDE AURORAL ACTIVITY WATCH

                     WATCH ISSUED: 06:00 UTC, 19 OCTOBER

                /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

VALID BEGINNING AT: 06:00 UTC ON 19 OCTOBER
       VALID UNTIL: 19:00 UTC ON 20 OCTOBER

    HIGH RISK PERIOD: 19      OCT (UTC days)
MODERATE RISK PERIOD: 19 - 20 OCT

PREDICTED ACTIVITY INDICES: 70, 20, 12, 10 (19 OCT - 22 OCT)

POTENTIAL MAGNITUDE OF LOW LATITUDE AURORAL ACTIVITY:  LOW - 
MODERATE

POTENTIAL DURATION OF THIS ACTIVITY: MAIN BELT = 12 TO 18 HOURS
                                    MINOR BELT = 24 HOURS

ESTIMATED TIME OF OPTIMUM OBSERVING CONDITIONS: NEAR LOCAL MIDNIGHT

EXPECTED LUNAR INTERFERENCE: NIL

OVERALL OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVATIONS FROM MIDDLE LATITUDES: FAIR
AURORAL ACTIVITY MAY BE OBSERVED APPROXIMATELY NORTH OF A LINE 
FROM...

        OREGON TO EXTREME NORTHERN UTAH TO EXTREME NORTHERN
COLORADO TO NORTHERN KANSAS TO MISSOURI TO KENTUCKY AND POSSIBLY 
NORTHERN TENNESSEE TO NORTH CAROLINA.

ACTIVITY MAY ALSO BE OBSERVED APPROXIMATELY NORTH OF A LINE FROM...

        NORTHERN FRANCE TO GERMANY TO POLAND TO NOTHERN RUSSIA 
INCLUDING PERHAPS A GREAT PART OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND, ALL OF 
NORWAY, MOST OF SWEDEN AND ALL OF FINLAND. OBSERVATIONS OF STRONG 
ACTIVITY WILL ALSO BE POSSIBLE FROM NEW ZEALAND AND EXTREME SOUTHERN 

AUSTRALIA.

NOTE: Serious observers interested in real-time conditions are 
encouraged to investigate the SWARM software at:

                  http://solar.uleth.ca/solar/www/swarm.html

SYNOPSIS...

     An unexpectedly vigorous interplanetary disturbance impacted 
the Earth late in the UTC day of 19 October. The disturbance, 
thought to be related to the coronal mass ejection from a recent 
eruption of a solar filament, is currently associated with very 
favorable characteristics for producing strong levels of auroral 
activity. Already, auroral activity has intensified notably
and minor to major geomagnetic storming is developing. The main 
phase of the disturbance arrived early in the UTC day of 19 October 
and is expected to continue to produce periods of high to intense 
auroral activity over the high and many central middle latitude 
locations throughout the next 12 to 24 hours. The lack of lunar 
interference will result in optimal observing conditions for most 
middle latitude dark-sky sites. This disturbance should begin 
subsiding later this UTC day (19 October) or early on 20  
October.

     This WATCH will remain in effect until 19:00 UTC on 20 
October.  It will then be updated or allowed to expire.

     Near real-time POLAR spacecraft auroral imagery is available 
at:
                         http://solar.uleth.ca/solar
                in the Aurora section (or see the side panel).

              PLEASE REPORT OBSERVATIONS OF AURORAL ACTIVITY TO:
                 http://solar.uleth.ca/solar/www/auroras.html


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For those of you unfamiliar with UTC, I have included a translation
that I have worked out.  I tried to get it confirmed 
(half-heartedly) with no luck so please let me know of corrections.
 
UTC (aka Universal Time, GMT, Greenwich Mean Time, etc.) is the
time at Longitude 0 which passes through the Greenwich Observatory 
just outside of London, England.  It is 6 hours later than Central 
Standard Time or 5 hours later than Central Daylight Time.  To 
translate the storm times:

06:00 UTC - 5 = 01:00 CDT = 24:00 (Midnight) MDT 
  = 23:00 (11 PM) PDT 

18:00 (6 PM) UTC - 5 = 13:00 (1 PM) CDT = 12:00 (Noon) MDT
  = 11:00 PDT 

24:00 (Midnight) UTC - 5 = 19:00 (7 PM) CDT = 18:00 (6 PM) MDT 
  = 17:00 (5 PM) PDT