Add-on:NOAA Auroral Activity

Overview
The auroral oval represented in the plots is not a photograph, and is not real-time. It is extrapolated statistically from the Space Environment Monitor (SEM) auroral particle data obtained during a single pass of a POES satellite over a polar region. For more information, see the NOAA POES Auroral Activity site.

Detailed description
The Space Environment Center (SEC) is exploring the NASA World Wind application to show the extent and position of the auroral oval extrapolated from measurements taken by the NOAA POES satellite. The plots contain the same data used to make the north and south plots displayed on the NOAA POES Auroral Activity page. The auroral oval represented in the plots is not a photograph, and is not real-time. It is extrapolated statistically from the Space Environment Monitor (SEM) auroral particle data obtained during a single pass of a POES satellite over a polar region. For more information, see the NOAA POES Auroral Activity site.

The auroral oval plots have static filenames: [GEpmapN.png and GEpmapS.png for the Northern and Southern hemisphere. Both plots are updated every ten minutes, and whenever new data arrives from one of the POES satellites. For the time of the latest plots and further details see the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere web pages.

The map projection is cylindrical, extending from -180 to +180 degrees centered on the Greenwich meridian, and from the geographic pole to 34 degrees equatorward. This projection is usable by the NASA World Wind application as an image overlay.

These image files are not official SEC products and may end or change at any time. The format and long-term availability are not guaranteed. A complete list of SEC Space Weather data is online

Installation
Download the SEC WorldWind-Aurora.zip file. Unzip the WorldWind-Aurora.zip into the same directory that the World Wind application was installed. If World Wind was installed using the defaults, this directory is "C:\Program Files\NASA\World Wind 1.3".

Usage
Start up the World Wind application and click on the NOAA logo on the top tool bar. The first time its loaded it may take 30 to 40 seconds to display.(see figure 1). 

Contact
Questions and comments welcome. See NOAA POES Auroral Activity site or Sue.Greer@noaa.gov