Aurora Forecast 3D
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.
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR UPGRADES
The upgrade will clear old cache and data used.
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].
- Location of the Day-side Cusp aurora (red)
- Forecasts based on predicted Kp index +0, +3 and +6 hours ahead in
time estimated by the Space Weather Prediction Centre (NOAA-SWPC).
- Color scaled Kp speedometer.
- Aurora Compass sky view display.
- Editable station / location list
- Go to animation.
- Right Ascension (RA) and Declination (DEC) of the Moon, Sun and 8 planets:
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto [3]
- Age of the Moon including the phase.
- Includes a 2.4 million star map [4].
- City light texture [5].
- Earth, Sun and Moon 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 index summary plot.
- Two-Line Element (TLE) satellite orbit calculations [9].
- Apparent Solar Time (AST) as analog clock in Sky view module.
- Skyview navigation.
- Laser Star pointer to 3D view port constellations [10].
- Sounding rocket trajectories
- Sun and Moon daily elevation plots with rise and set time.
- Calypso style
- Epoch selection for magnetic pole position [11].
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] Vallado, David A., Paul Crawford, Richard Hujsak, and T.S. Kelso, Revisiting Spacetrack Report #3, AIAA/AAS-2006-6753, https://celestrak.com, 2006.
[10] 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.
[11] Tsyganenko, N. A., Secular drift of the auroral ovals: How fast do they actually move?, Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 3017-3023, 2019.
Category : Weather
Reviews (26)
This app is visually very appealing, has some great features, and is pretty easy to use once you get used to it. The help feature and video are pretty good, but might need to be updated for the current version. For example, I can see how to add a station, but not edit the name. I see a few other things on the globe display, but don't see an explanation of what they are (yellow map pin?). I look forward to seeing if the aurora visibility indication is accurate! Cool app.
Seems the new upgrade removed the 3, 6, 9 hour forecast? I found that hugely helpful. I like the new graphics and recent fixes though.
Great app, though a lot of options/functions to figure out. I like the astro background explanation in the info section for people who want to learn more. A nice option would be to set up an alert when a storm is forecast (or is that function already there and I missed it?)
Used to work great but now it crashes when I open it. I uninstalled it and reinstalled it but still having the same problem. Update 1/5/21 I did install the new version and it is working wonderfully. This app was and will be my go to app for Aurora.
Love(d) the app, but after upgrading to Android 12, the app continually crashes 1 second after opening. I've tried uninstalling then reinstalling, but didn't help. Hope it can be fixed, as a great app.
No Azimuthal Equidistant Projection Map. The world is Flat, there is no Curve. 75% of earth is water, Water is Flat and Level.
I love this app. It was crashing on my Samsung Note 20. After posting that info, there was an update which fixed the crashing problem. Thanks so much, Developers. Y'all done good! 😄👍
Unfortunately, the app crashes on Google Pixel 6 just a few seconds after launching it. No error message is shown so I cannot provide more details.
This is the most user-friendly real-time 3D Earth app. I only needed a reference to check on Antarctica, but I'll use most of the astronomy visualizations. It is too bad that I'm nowhere near auroras.
I like the display - but the app seems determined that there is no Internet connection (there is, and all other apps are working) and is unable to update...
Great stuff. The latest update seems to have fixed the crashing problem. I use this a ton when I'm in Alaska chasing auroras.
Awesome! It could really use a widget though - just a 1x1 widget to show kp index and lunch the app :-)
The Kp index is not updating and sits on 1 all the time. Even during the recent G3 Kp7 storm it never got any higher than 1.
Wow, there is a surprising amount of information in this app. There's much more than just the Aurora forcast. Excellent!
Developer worked quickly to resolve bugs. This is the best free aurora tracker you can get.
App now working again. Thanks for sorting this out.
A superb application that provides very detailed celestial information as well as aurora forecast and more, thanks!!
Great job on the app. Beautiful details and information.
Crashes on opening and has done for a while.
Keeps freezing then crashes. V.7.0 Samsung s20ultra
Stops after ~ 2 seconds on my pixel 3 / Android 12 :(
Cool But Notification Alert Error & KP-Index Little Unfocused
The best! I've been using it for years and I tried others, none can compare
Latest update with the slider at the bottom is really buggy. (Annoying) The slider keeps snapping back. As well as rotating the globe every time you try to slide the timeline. When you finally got the time correct on the slider when pushing the home icon to set back your position it snaps back to 00:00h... At the moment not usable, looking forward to the next update.
add planet u app boost up ,see that
Amazing and very informative This app is very easy to use, especially for answering the question, "could I have seen the aurora last night?". It's a very well designed user experience. Even has a star chart feature, and let's the user move backward and forward in time about a day.