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7 comments:

  1. Has Miltos recorded a rocket song for SnapChat yet? Fans are waiting.

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    1. well, he's been kept rather busy repairing things with tools in the domes, so i'm not sure he had the chance to talk with them....

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  2. I love following what you do and listening in on the science behind the process, so first of all, thanks for including the public! I hear a lot of terms during the science updates that I only vaguely understand from an applied point of view. Would it be possible for you to post a bit on what charging, substorm, reconnection, etc look like in magnetometer data? For that matter, is it possible to distinguish stable arcs from diffuse glow or even other behavior in mag data? The reason I ask is that as an armchair enthusiast I've noticed that ACE Bz going south with moderate or increasing density and maybe a velocity increase are good signs something may happen in 45-90 minutes, but that it's fairly general. The UAF-GI magnetometer plots seem to indicate something more specific happening or about to happen overhead and seem to lead what I see out the window by about 5 minutes. If the magnetometer suddenly takes off sharply and looks like it's about to make a sketch of the Grand Canyon, I know that I need to be outside with my camera asap, but that's about the limit of my ability to understand what the plots are trying to tell me. I get the sense that the auroral reactions to individual H, D and Z disturbances are not created equally, but I haven't worked out what each one indicates as far as arcs, diffuse glow, twisting motions or a flowing motion along the arcs. Do you have any general wisdom you could share in these aspects?

    The Google Monster seems to bring up either very conceptual, but easily understandable descriptions of the solar wind interacting with the magnetic field, or very specific things written for a magnetohydrodynamicist trying to explain what's going on -inside- the black box, but not much in the way of basic input/output from a purely observational point of view. I do realize that I may be asking for more than time and saintly patience may allow, so I'll definitely understand if it's not possible to address, or if you have a 'for further reading' list.

    In any event, I'm grateful to be able to listen in, watch the aurora and see your rockets fly! Thanks, and definitely do visit again and as often as you can!

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    1. Perhaps a more concise version of my question would be asking which sources of data you will be using as launch indicators and what sort of behavior would you like to see from them to make the decision to continue past a 2 or 3 minute hold?

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  3. hello- thank you for your detailed interest! i have had my student rob clayton update a tutorial from previous rocket shots; he has added it to the beginning of the "useful links" page on this blog. you might take a look and see how it addresses some of your questions. -k

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    1. Thanks for the quick reply! I must have somehow missed that document on my first pass or two scanning through the links, but it's definitely right along the lines of what I was looking for. Thank you both for putting that together and including links to previous examples and data, it's great!

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    2. ah, but it was your question which prompted us to post it! that's why you didn't see it before. thanks for your interest.

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