Aurora Forecast Rocketeer

Locate the aurora now

The Aurora Forecast Rocketeer is a tool to track down where the aurora is located in the sky from any location on planet. It renders Earth in 3D with rotation and scaling at your fingertips. Home position is given by your location sensor. The Sun illuminates the globe as it updates in near real-time (1 second epochs). The forecasts are upto 3 days ahead in time. These are updated when the app is active and connected to internet.

An Aurora Compass is included that shows where the auroral oval, the Moon and the Sun are located as you look up at the sky from your location. The phase and age of the Moon is also visualized in the compass. By zooming out in the 3D view port, satellites, stars and planets appear in their orbits around the Sun.

You may also visit any selected planet by rocket.

FEATURES

- 3D view port of Earth with zoom and rotation enabled.

- Solar illumination of the Earth and the Moon.

- Aurora oval size and location in real time [1,2].

- Dayside location of the red colored Cusp.

- Forecasts based on predicted NOAA-SWPC Kp index.

- Color scaled Kp speedometer.

- Aurora Compass sky view display.

- Go to animation.

- Right Ascension and Declination of the Moon, Sun and 8 planets [3].

- Age of the Moon including the phase.

- Includes a 2.4 million star map [4].

- City light texture [5].

- Earth, Sun, Moon and planet textures [6,7].

- Sky view module to track planets and stars[8].

- 3-day space weather condition forecast as news ticker.

- 3-day long term Kp summary plot.

- Apparent Solar Time (AST).

- Sky view navigation.

- Laser Star pointer to 3D view port constellations [9].

- Sun and Moon daily elevation plots with rise and set time.

- Target links Wikipedia, Open Street Map, NOAA and YR

- Sky colors by the Perez formula [10,11].

- Virtual rocket launch to any planet in the solar system.

References

[1] Sigernes F., M. Dyrland, P. Brekke, S. Chernouss, D.A. Lorentzen, K. Oksavik, and C.S. Deehr, Two methods to forecast auroral displays, Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate (SWSC), Vol. 1, No. 1, A03, DOI:10.1051/swsc/2011003, 2011.

[2] Starkov G. V., Mathematical model of the auroral boundaries, Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, 34 (3), 331-336, 1994.

[3] P. Schlyter, How to compute planetary positions, http://stjarnhimlen.se/, Stockholm, Sweden.

[4] Bridgman, T. and Wright, E., The Tycho Catalog Sky map- Version 2.0, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3572, January 26, 2009.

[5] The Visible Earth catalog, http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, April-October, 2012.

[6] T. Patterson, Natural Earth III - Texture Maps, http://www.shadedrelief.com, October 1, 2016.

[7] Nexus - Planet Textures, http://www.solarsystemscope.com/nexus/, January 4, 2013.

[8] Hoffleit, D. and Warren, Jr., W.H., The Bright Star Catalog, 5th Revised Edition (Preliminary Version), Astronomical Data Center, NSSDC/ADC, 1991.

[9] Christensen L.L., M. Andre, B. Rino, R.Y. Shida, J. Enciso, G.M. Carillo, C. Martins, and M.R. D'Antonio, The Constellations, The International Astronomical Union (IAU), https://iau.org, 2019.

[10] Perez R., J.M. Seals, and P. Ineichen, An all-weather model for sky luminance distribution, Solar Energy, 1993.

[11] Preetham A.J., P. Shirley and B. Smith, A practical analytic model for daylight, Computer Graphics, (SIGGRAPH '99 Proceedings), 91-100, 1999.