Welcome to KHO ...
Home of The Aurora Forecast 3D app
StatusFull operation ... (12 November 2021)
RoadStill Open
RepairsDome heating ON 24/7
BandwagonParked in Garage Mine 7
Coming Up!
November 12, 2021
KHO is part of the Cusp Region EXperiment 2A (C-REX-2A), a NASA sounding rocket mission that will release 20 artificial clouds into the ionosphere above the Greenland Sea. First possible launch window 01 - 16 of December.

Watch Why to launch video?

SS-520-3 launched!
November 4, 2021
Congratulation to JAXA (Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency) and NIPR (National Institute of Polar Reseach). Their SS-520-3 rocket was successfully launched at 10:09:25 UT by Andøya Space into the dayside cusp from the Svalbard Rocket Range (Svalrak) in Ny-Ålesund. KHO provided optical support for the campaign which is part of the Grand Challenge Initiative (GCI).
Master Anton Goertz!
September 2, 2021
Congratulations to Master Anton Goertz! His Masters project used All-Sky Camera data and Meridian Scanning Photometer data from Ny Ålesund and the KHO, along with SuperDARN radar data to investigate Poleward Moving Auroral Forms (PMAFs). In his thesis he used an arciness index to quantify, for the first time, how the morphology of PMAFs changes as they move from the dayside auroral region and into the polar cap. He also studied instances of ionospheric plasma flow channels forming around the PMAFs as they move. He is heading off to Los Alamos, USA to continue with his studies. Good luck!
Doctor Fasil Tesema!
June 17, 2021
Salute! Congratulation to Fasil Tesema Kebede. Today he successfully defended his PhD thesis titled: "Energetic electron precipitation of pulsating aurorae and their mesospheric effects".

Read more here.

Master C.M. van Hazendonk!
02.06 2021
Congratulations to Master Charlotte van Hazendonk! She studied cutoff latitudes of protons during solar energetic particle events using particle flux data from GPS satellites. In her thesis, she presented a new method for determining proton cutoff latitudes using GPS and GOES particle flux measurements and studied the behaviour of cutoff latitudes in different solar wind and geomagnetic conditions.
Sky colors
May 05, 2021
Version 7.4 of the Aurora Forecast 3D app is now released and reviewed by Apple and Google. It includes the Perez model for sky illuminance that simulates clear sky color conditions as a function of solar position - observed from any ground position on the planet. It runs stable on all platforms with less than 1 second background execution.
High HSI compression ratio
Mars 24, 2021
Erasmu+ Trainee Adrienne Esmeralda Oudijk has published her work on Hyper Spectral Imaging (HSI) compression. The spectral data cube is compressed by a factor of 10-5 with minimum loss of spatial resolution and spectral signature.
See IEEE Whispers paper and video presentation.
Pulsating aurora and O3?
Mars 12, 2021
Our PhD candidate Fasil Tesema Kebede has published work on how high energetic electron precipitation causing pulsating aurora may affect upper atmospheric chemistry and ozone destruction.
More details here.
Space Hurricane!
February 22, 2021
Our very own Director Prof. Jøran Idar Moen and Adjunct Prof. Kjellmar Oksavik at UNIS have together with an international team discovered a polar ionospheric Space Hurricane, which is published in Nature. This discovery sheds new light on how Earth is coupled to space.
Link to paper here.
Doctora K. Herlingshaw!
January 18, 2021
Salute! Katie Herlingshaw has defended her PhD thesis titled: "Characterising Mesoscale Fast Flow Channels in the Polar Cap Ionosphere" The defense was on Friday 22nd of January 2021.

Read thesis here.

Video trip!
January 15, 2021
Do you want to see the inside of KHO? Join Head engineer Mikko Syrjäsuo, and PhD students Katie Herlingshaw and Nina Kristine Eriksen on a video trip through the observatory.
Watch Youtube video.
Aurora Forecast 3D Demo
January 30, 2021
The Aurora Forecast 3D is a tool to track down where the aurora is located in the sky from any location on planet. It renders Earth in 3D with rotation and scaling at your fingertips. This video demonstrates the app.
Watch Youtube video.
Day/Nightside aurora?
December 29, 2020
Our very own Professor Dag Lorentzen explains the difference between dayside and nightside aurora. This article was also published in the local news paper Svalbardposten. See norwegian translation here.
Read english version here.
Master Lidia Luque!
December 2020
Congratulation to Master Lidia Luque! She investigated ionospheric signatures of energy input and turbulence in the polar ionosphere using the spectral width parameter measured by the SuperDARN radar (which been used as a proxy for ionospheric turbulence). Lidia examined specific cases of high spectral width and linked them to signatures of energy input into the polar ionosphere using the EISCAT radar and KHO optics. Read thesis here.
BACC #5 operational!
December 18, 2020
We are very happy to welcome the Tromsø Geophysical Observatory (TGO) at UiT The Arctic University of Norway to join the Boreal Aurora Camera Constellation (BACC) with camera number 5. It is installed and on-line today at the old Skibotn Observatory.

View quick look here.
Interactive app
December 10, 2020
Version 6.9 of the Aurora Forecast 3D app now includes detailed target identification. Star constellation, planet, satellite and location information are linked to the Web. The main purpose is to create an interactive learning experience.

Computer downloads here.
Webmaster: F. Sigernes