I just learned about hobby and read through some discussions about space weather in the spaceweatherlive forum.

It is not clear to me from those discussions where the data they discuss is coming from.

Are there tools that one can have at home to track space weather events? Through hobby-grade telescopes can one observe solar activity? Are diagnostic radio signals detectable with an SDR? Can an X-ray/gamma burst produce a strong enough diagnostic signal to detect with a radiation detector? Or are there some other type of detectors?

Is the main source of data used for interpreting solar activity patterns as a hobby the data that can be found here: https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/ ?

    • Salamander@mander.xyzOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Thanks a lot! I can understand some of what I am looking at now.

      I would like to find out if there are associated phenomena that I might be able to notice using software-defined radio. Maybe some time I can chase after an aurora, but this time I am unprepared.

        • Salamander@mander.xyzOP
          2·
          1 year ago

          You’ve still got time! Between 10pm and 2am are the golden hours for this sort of thing, but look north as it gets dark. Use your phone camera with a long exposure to check. :)

          I’m living in Amsterdam at the moment, in a city environment. From what I have found, I would need to travel to the north of the Netherlands to have a good chance of seeing something. A difficult trip to improvise on a Sunday night. Hopefully when the next opportunity arises I will know enough to appreciate it more deeply.

            • Salamander@mander.xyzOP
              1·
              1 year ago

              Stay up until 3:30 the other night. When it exploded again it gave a giant middle finger to Europe:

              Aahh, that’s rough 😅

              But lo, the density died and the pillars are diffused. My friend caught a little bit on the horizon in camera. I saw a little bit of red but nothing stunning. Very faint. You can just see the pink on the horizon. This is facing north.

              Nice! Is this your first time seeing it, or is this something that you get to attempt often?