How To Never Miss The Aurora Borealis Again!
April 24, 2023 automation northern lights ☕️ buy me a coffee
You can access the results of this blog here
I live in Scotland and I have been getting constant messages about the Northern Lights in the sky from my Mum. I really want to see them but have to travel out of the city to escape the light polution. I recently discovered that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have service that provideds up to date Aurora forecasts for both hemispheres:
This inspired me to make a dynamically updating wallpaper for my desktop. I see this multiple times a day so should never miss another aurora borealis!
The Code
This is a really simple website that uses the background CSS properties to correctly display the image.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<style>
body {
background-image: url('http://services.swpc.noaa.gov/images/aurora-forecast-northern-hemisphere.jpg');
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-attachment: fixed;
background-size: contain;
background-position: center;
background-color: black;
}
</style>
<html>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="900">
</html>
The <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="900"> ensures that the image is updated every 15 minutes.
The Execution
Now set your wallpaper from a URL. This is easy to do on most machines:
- Windows
- Linux KDE (this is the one I use)
- MacOS
- All other OSes
The Result
Screenshot of my two monitors (left=landscape, right=potrait) showing the result