Abstract
A 61 years old watercolor painting of red aurora was recently provided from a Japanese citizen, and it contributed to understand the detailed time evolution around the peak time of the large magnetic storm on 11 February 1958. The painting gives information of the elevation angle of the red aurora seen from low latitude (27.4° magnetic latitude) at 1205–1225 UT during the beginning of the recovery phase of the magnetic storm. Combined with the hand-made sketch of the same red aurora seen from the Abashiri Local Meteorological Office (located at 34° magnetic latitude) at 1215 UT, the position of the red aurora is determined via triangulation. It is found that the red aurora reached up to 400 km at 41° magnetic latitude, which is 1.0° higher in magnetic latitude than the red aurora which appeared just before the peak time of the magnetic storm.
Highlights
It was about 61 years ago that the last watercolor painting of aurora was recorded in Japan
Many Japanese citizens were aware of aurorae since 1957, when the first Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE) was successful to build the Antarctic research station Syowa and start overwintering
On 11 February 1958, communications were disrupted between Japan and the expedition ship because of the occurrence of a record-large magnetic storm which attracted great public attention
Summary
It was about 61 years ago that the last watercolor painting of aurora was recorded in Japan. It is very rare to see aurorae from Japan because of its low magnetic latitude, and the main reason why no auroral paintings were reported since would be due to the fact that Japanese citizens rapidly adopted to take photographs rather than making paintings to record such rare phenomena. Many Japanese citizens were aware of aurorae since 1957, when the first Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE) was successful to build the Antarctic research station Syowa and start overwintering. On 11 February 1958, communications were disrupted between Japan and the expedition ship because of the occurrence of a record-large magnetic storm which attracted great public attention. The purpose of this article is to report a new contribution of the last auroral color painting which was provided from a citizen
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