"Ian Sutherland" wrote in
message ...
Col wrote:
I didn't realise there was such a display last night, so never thought
to look.
Having never seen one I'm wondering if it will be visible tonight as we
will
clearly have ideal viewing conditions.

I'm sure there is an aurora alert website somewhere.

Col

Try the SAMNET site based on a magnetometer at York:

http://www.dcs.lancs.ac.uk/iono/aurorawatch/

..... they'll even send you an e-mail alert when activity is high,
although I always miss them because I'm never reading e-mail around
midnight when most seem to occur.

I wouldn'r rely on them though. The first alert was sent out at 2001 UT,
well for most people the best of it was over by then. The seconmd alert at
2201UT, coded red, was just before the display appeared to have one last
spurt of activity before fading away by about 2300UT.

I first saw it about 1855UT, as I was on my way to an astronomical society
meeting at Scarborough, would you believe. The next 30 mins was one of the
bst displays I've seen from this latitude. Although I will have to have
words with the members in the society in Hull. They were out observing at a
dark location and hadn't seen anything until I called them at about 1910UT.
The Pres of the society will have to raise this, in gentle fun, at the next
meeting (which is me anyway!).

--
Rob Overfield
Hull
http://www.astrosport02.karoo.net/YorkshireWeather/