Northern Lights

[EternalOptimist]

There has been a lot of solar activity that might result in the Northern lights being visible tonight, and the next few days.

The further north , the better the chances.

[TimberWolf]

N/A

[Wilmslow]

There has been a lot of solar activity that might result in the Northern lights being visible tonight, and the next few days.

The further north , the better the chances.

Way too foggy on the moors this morning, but will keep a look out tomorrow.

Got a stunning view of the eclipse when on the M62 at 6am, so I am hoping!!

[MarillionFan]

There has been a lot of solar activity that might result in the Northern lights being visible tonight, and the next few days.

The further north , the better the chances.

Not falling for that again.

Last time someone posted that I wondered down the road to the local racecourse, entered over a fence and then climbed the central hill. Not only was it pitch black, I saw bugger all and then got pulled over by the police as I left.

[TimberWolf]

Solar flares are classified as A, B, C, M or X according to the peak flux (in watts per square meter, W/m2) of 100 to 800 picometer X-rays near Earth, as measured on the GOES spacecraft. Each class has a peak flux ten times greater than the preceding one, with X class flares having a peak flux of order 10−4 W/m2. Within a class there is a linear scale from 1 to 9, so an X2 flare is twice as powerful as an X1 flare, and is four times more powerful than an M8 flare. The more powerful M and X class flares are often associated with a variety of effects on the near-Earth space environment. Although the GOES classification is commonly used to indicate the size of a flare, it is only one measure.

This extended logarithmic classification is necessary because the total energies of flares range over many orders of magnitude, following a uniform distribution with flare frequency roughly proportional to the inverse of the total energy. Stellar flares and earthquakes show similar power-law distributions.[3]
Solar flare - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WTF, was this classification developed by the Yanks or something? Just because a scale is logarithmic doesn't mean it has to be all over the shop like some mad demented randomised letterised thing as above surely? Why the big gap between C and M? And as for the leap to X, well I can see that pretty soon they are going to run out of letters of the alphabet, though admittedly a flare of some three orders of magnitude more powerful than X might make the requirement of new alphabet letters somewhat redundant, if this puts us back into the stone age. But I supposed they could always rely on numbers at that point, as they freaking well might have done from the start?

[TimberWolf]

Real timeish telemetry here.

Apparently ACE gives 30 minutes warning of charged particles hitting the atmosphere, but the latest space weather forecast is that the storm is going to be a bit of a damp squib.