This is an open-source version of the OVATION Prime 2010 (OP10) aurora model in python.

Current status (January 2020): Work in progress! Debugging is ongoing for OP10, and updating to OP13 is underway.

by C. Möstl, Rachel L. Bailey, IWF Graz, Austria. Contributions by Diana E. Morosan and Liam Kilcommons. https://www.iwf.oeaw.ac.at/en/user-site/christian-moestl/

If you want to use parts of this code for generating results for peer-reviewed scientific publications, please contact me per email (christian.moestl@oeaw.ac.at) or via https://twitter.com/chrisoutofspace .

The solar wind input comes either from OMNI2 historic data or from the PREDSTORM L1 solar wind forecast, which is based on data from the DSCOVR or ACE and STEREO-A spacecraft. The results are plotted with cartopy on different types of world maps. OVATION has been largely rewritten based on Ovation Pyme and open source versions thankfully made available by NOAA and the UK MetOffice.

I use a python 3.7.6 miniconda installation with standard packages (numpy, numba, scipy, matplotlib) as well as cartopy (0.17.0), aacgmv2 (2.6.0), and heliosat (0.3.1). It is recommended to make a conda environment to run the code. For full installation instructions for such an environment including environment.yml (for conda) and requirements.txt files (for pip) see: https://github.com/helioforecast/helio4cast

After the installation of the environment, go to a directory of your choice:

git clone https://github.com/helioforecast/auroramaps

auroramaps is not yet distributed via PyPI.

Activate the conda environment, and run this file - the input variables are controlled in input.py or input_realtime.py and can be changed there:

python aurora.py

For matplotlib backend 'Agg' use this:

python aurora.py --server

For a real time version use this (note the solar wind input file needs to be specified in input_realtime.py):

python aurora.py --real

This produces a folder in the results directory named as given in input.py or input_realtime.py that contains aurora movies (gif, mp4) and frames for the event, and a plot on the Newell coupling. For the animation, it is assumed that ffmpeg (https://ffmpeg.org/download.html) is available in a given directory (to be added to input.py).

3 modes are available, selected in input.py

• 0: uses the real time PREDSTORM solar wind prediction.
• 1: uses a local file of the PREDSTORM solar wind output.
• 2: for using any interval in the OMNI2 data since 1963.

In mode 2, the OMNI2 data are downloaded automatically from https://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/data/omni/low_res_omni/omni2_all_years.dat on the first time, and then converted to a pickle for faster processing in new runs. If you want to update the OMNI2 data, just delete both files in "auroramaps/data/omni2/" to force a new download and conversion.

There are 3 types of maps available - a global image of the northern hemisphere and high-resolution maps of Europe and North-America. For both maps, flux and probability images can be made, andt here are 3 different background images available (blue marble, VIIRS night band and a topography image). Control all this with input.py.

These are samples with blue marble background for the flux map (global polar view) and the probability map (North America and Europe):