Below is a static version of a flash program designed to let you expereince one of the feature os the HEX project - the measurement of trails to determine the velocity and height traveled. We have made a slideshow of all the important pictures from this program. To try out the flash program go to this page. Additionally there are Aurora Web Sites

Slideshow of measurement

Text of Above: As the Horizontal E Region experiment flies across the auror it will leave behoind a trail of Tri Methyl Aluminum (TMA) that will glow white in the night sky. The Trail will be about 150 Kilometers high and 50 kilometers long

Within seconds upwelling wind movements will change the TMA trail's position in the sky. Observers will take pictures of the trail as specified intergals of time (3, 6, 9 and 12 minutes) and these pictures will be analyzed with trigonemetry to detemine their position in the sky.

In this example you will compare and measure the photographs to find the verical distance the TMA was moved by the wind TWo Weeks after Hex is succesfully launced real photos will be posted so the actual measuremnet can be made.

Instructions: To measure the TMA you would drag and dorp the time lapse image on the right hand side of the image aobe onto the center of the measuremnt area. The image can removed by clicking on its edge. Any image can be brought to the front by clicking on the home area. Try Rearranging the images so you can see the Differences between eac one. There are four images at the previously described time intervals.

The above image shows the +12 minutes superimposed over the +3 minutes TMA trails. The distance between the peak of the three minutes and the peak of the twelve miniutes has been measured using the online calculator returning a distance of 20 kilometers.

The final image is of the six and nine minute interval . We have marked these two because they are the two consecutive TMA trails where there has been the greates distance moved in a single time period. This value is measured as about 12 km. That wraps up the TMA measurement tutorial. If you have any questions or need clarifications please contact us at the provided page. Thanks so much!

Aurora Web Sites
Neal B. Brown
June 2002

Photos of aurora:
The best collection of photos of the aurora on the Internet, by Jan Curtis
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/weather/aurora/images/aurora/jan.curtis/

Great photos by Dick Hutchinson who lives along the Yukon River
http://www.ptialaska.net/~hutch/aurora.html

Electronic greeting cards with aurora
http://www.ptialaska.net/~hutch/aurora.html

Space Weather:
The best Space Weather web site on the Internet
http://windows.engin.umich.edu/spaceweather/

Today’s Space Weather from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
http://www.sec.noaa.gov/today.html

A Whole New Image of Earth
Good story about early results (June 2000) from NASA’s IMAGE satellite
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/image-eo-00e.html

Click on Space Weather Center, well organized collection of educational and information material
http://www.spacescience.org/1.html

Lesson plans, some with standards:
Limited material, but National Standards highlighted, click on Sun/earth tab
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/segway/

NASA Sun-Earth connection, some lesson plans for various topics
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/educators/class.html

Good lesson plans, glossary of words used, Space Science Institute
http://www.spacescience.org/1.html

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Education and Outreach site
http://www.sec.noaa.gov/info/index.html

General interest:
Neal Brown’s educational/informational site
http://www.alaskascience.com/

Poker Flat Research Range, rockets, aurora and more
http://dac3.gi.alaska.edu/

Geophysical Institute University of Alaska, prediction of aurora
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/

Fraser Cain’s web site; “My goal with this project is to build a comprehensive directory of space links for
educators, students and space buffs.”
http://www.universetoday.com

Late breaking science news stories
http://www.stn2.com/environment.html

Space science news stories
http://www.spacedaily.com/news

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration space site
http://www.websites.noaa.gov/guide/sciences/atmo/space.html

Society for Amateur Scientists, good place for reliable information
http://earth.thesphere.com/SAS/

Stanford University comprehensive web site for space science
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/resources.html

A Space Science at NASA web offering
http://www.thursdaysclassroom.com/index_06jan00.html

University Partnering for Operation Support
http://sd-www.jhuapl.edu/UPOS/

Other:
Aurora Sounds:
http://members.tripod.com/~auroralsounds/

Hands On hardware suppliers:
Arbor Scientific, source of magnetic earth balls and magnaprobes
http://www.arborsci.com/

Rainbowsymphony, source of diffraction “opera glasses.”
http://www.rainbowsymphony.com/

suggestions, comments? email me.

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