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To: aurora-northwest@lists.wallawalla.edu
Subject: Aurora Level 1 (Northwest: 2.000 @ 02:03:24 UTC)
The aurora is visible NOW. See http://www.keteu.org/~haunma/aurora/.
The real-time alarms are distributed by e-mail. Everyone is welcome to join the mailing lists, and the service is free. The list owner makes no guarantee of accuracy or usability for these data. False alarms are rare, but they do occur once in a while.
There are currently two lists, both of which have extremely low traffic---usually a few messages per month, or less. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your subscription options using the web-based interface, click on the list name.
| Mailing list | Content | Target audience | Detector site |
|---|---|---|---|
| aurora-northwest | Alarm messages only (safe for wireless devices) | Residents of the Pacific Northwest and surrounding states/provinces | near Walla Walla, Washington, at 46.0° N, 118.2° W |
| aurora-announce | Aurora Alarm status reports, sighting reports | All subscribers to the alarm list | N/A |
"Aurora-northwest" carries nothing but the alarm messages and the monthly test, both of which are about 400 characters long. Subscribe your cell phone's email address to this list and you won't have to worry about sleeping through an alarm.
All administrative comments, status reports, explanations of equipment malfunction or false alarms, etc. are carried only on "aurora-announce." Therefore, If you subscribe to one of the regional mailing lists, please subscribe to aurora-announce also! (with your "desktop" email address)
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 18:03:25 -0800 From: Mark Haun <
Level 1 alarms may be visible only in dark rural locations or to the trained eye. Levels 2 and 3 should be easily visible to anyone given clear, dark skies and dark-adapted eyes. How dark is dark? If you can see the Milky Way, your sky is probably dark enough. Your local astronomy club can usually provide information on dark-sky sites in your area. Always give your eyes at least five minutes to gain minimal night vision after going outdoors. Even then, faint auroras can be easily mistaken for lines of haze or high clouds because human vision cannot perceive color in low light.
The first number inside the parentheses is the threshold value, indicating the sky brightness (in arbitrary units) that was exceeded to trigger the alarm. The threshold is adjusted upward when the moon is out. The second number is the time of the alarm, hopefully no more than a couple of minutes before it arrived in your mailbox.
Test messages will be sent automatically the first day of every month around noon Pacific time (1900 or 2000 UTC, depending on daylight savings time). A test message will appear the same as the sample above except that a special "Level 0" will be used and the message body will read
THIS IS ONLY A TEST. See http://www.keteu.org/~haunma/aurora/.
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