Build a pop-bottle magnetometer
Build a simple pop-bottle magnetometer to demonstrate the concept of how the direction of the Earth’s magnetic fields can be measured. Suitable for ages 6 and over.
Build a citizen-science AuroraWatchNet magnetometer
Want to operate your own citizen-science magnetometer capable of measuring detecting when the aurora can be seen from the UK? If you have some experience building electronic circuits then now you can! We don’t have a kit but the hardware design is open source (Creative-Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0) and the software is released under the GNU Public License v2.
To work correctly the sensor unit must be located outside away from human disturbance. The original battery-powered version is easy to install, data is transmitted by a radio link back to a Raspberry Pi computer located indoors. We have a newer design which uses Power-over-Ethernet. It is much more sensitive and stable but requires a wired connection from the sensor unit to the Raspberry Pi or your network.
Download the manuals from here. We recommend contacting us before you start ordering components to check for the latest information. We sometimes have spare printed circuit boards.
Coming soon!
We have a simpler version which uses just a Raspberry Pi computer (no microcontroller) and hope to add build instructions to the manual very soon.
Build a service using the AuroraWatch API
The AuroraWatch UK alert status is published in realtime. Our API provides the latest status information and other metadata such as the site used to detect aurora, status messages etc.
Examples of projects using our API: