The maps above are based on live contact reports from radio amateurs made via the DX Cluster network. If a contact report includes the word “aurora” or the letters “AU” or “AUR” in the comments part of the report, or has an “a” appended to the signal quality report, it will be plotted on the live map. Very occasionally, text in the comments section may include unintended trigger characters which are registered in error as an auroral contact. Click here to see the textual reports to confirm them. Typical contact reports look like these:

<example>
DL1YAW   144074.5 GM4BYF hrd 52a jo41                  1549 12 May 2021
G7RAU    144070.0 SM7GVF IN79JX(AU>JO77GA qtf20 32a h  1548 12 May 2021
EW6X     144047.1 UA3MBJ 56A                           1529 12 May 2021  
G8HGN    50155.0  MM5DWW 55a                           1529 12 May 2021
</example>

The map is auto-refreshed approximately once per minute. It’s generated by the application LiveMUF by Dave Edwards, G7RAU. This application is available to licenced radio amateurs to produce their own propagation maps.

KEY:
Yellow arcs signify auroral reflection zones for the stations reporting auroral contacts.
White closely spaced arcs = “Iso Reflections”
White parallel lines crossing the map = day/night terminator
Yellow star = Sub-solar point

The data block in the bottom left corner includes the date and the start/end times for the 30 minute period of the current map in UTC.

View the Real-time Auroral Electrojet data from Kyoto, Japan: [link]