Medium-scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances Observed Over Bear Lake, Utah

As a part of NASA's AWE (Atmospheric Waves Experiment) Mission, the Student Collaboration team at USU has collected airglow images of the ionosphere over a period of 19 months since August 2024. We utilize an all-sky imager located at USU's Bear Lake Observatory (BLO). The imager is tuned to the 630 nm airglow of atomic oxygen emission centered at ~250 km altitude. This allows for visual observation of Medium-Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances (MSTIDs). Solar activities are one of the main sources of MSTIDs but recent studies have shown that gravity waves can also play a role in generating them. Together with AWE data, the possible impact of mesospheric gravity waves on the MSTIDs can be investigated. In this poster, we implemented standard image processing techniques to determine the characteristics of the observed MSTIDs over BLO. We will explore the possible connection among MSTIDs, solar activities, and gravity waves from below.