Hi Aaron,
I'm no expert ... but the 2 things I look for are the Kp and Bz numbers. Generally Kp should be 4 or above and Bz pointing south (-ve). The more -ve Bz, the better. In terms of those circles, Activity 9 roughly relates to Kp 4 and 10 to Kp 5 or above.
The other thing to watch for are potential solar wind stream impacts with Earth. These can be due to Coronal holes, or CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections). A number of spacecraft are out there monitoring these things and the data is fed into models that give real time predictions of likely impacts. Like Earth weather models, there is a degree of uncertainly, so they should be taken as indications rather than gospel.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wsa-enlil/
Another site worth following is the Facebook Tasmania Aurora Group. They get pretty active when events happen and are a great resource for links and such.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2150...01328/?fref=ts
Aurora chasing can be quite frustrating, but the reward is great. Remember, you are dealing with 2 weather systems (Earth and Sun), the Lunar phases and location (latitude, longitude). They all have to line up to see the prize. I had many failures before I caught a good one, others have seen it first try. You may be one of the lucky ones ... there is a forecast for a possible glancing CME impact tonight!
Good luck.
Colin
There's a bit of buzz on there about this evening.
