Astronomy
A good general Astronomy site is Heavens Above. It has sky charts which include the planets and satellite info. They also have information about how to see Iridium Flares (Bright lights which are caused by the sun reflecting of the large antenna on the Iridium satellite a mobile communications satellite system.)
Study what will be in the night sky when you get up to the Island.
The
island is at about Latitude 45.9; Longitude -81.9
The Northern Lights
Aurora
Chasers
http://www.aurorachasers.comThis
site has a lot of good information. You can set up an account so it will
send you a notice when the Northern Lights are visible where you live. To
do this select FREE ALERTING form the menu on the left of the home page. This is a site that will notify you when Northern Lights are expected. You
get about up to a 45 minute advance warning and it can be sent to your computer
e-mail account or your pager or cell phone if it has an e-mail address and text
capability.
One way geomagnetic activity (Aurora Strength) is measured with the Kp Index.
You can also find out the minimum Kp index number is to see it for any location on a dark clear night at midnight (The best time) from the web site above. If it was 8 PM instead of midnight the Kp index would need to be about 2 higher.
KP = 5 at the Island
KP = 7 at Seattle or Detroit
To see the current KP number look in the upper left corner of the screen you get from: http://www.aurorachasers.com
A
map of current aurora activity but does not use the KP units of measurement:
http://www.sec.noaa.gov/pmap/pmapN.html
General
viewing information:
http://www.sec.noaa.gov/Aurora/index.html
Couple
of other interesting sites:
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/weather/aurora/
http://www.spacew.com
Return to The Spouse's CornerRev 12/29/04