Snapshots & Community Observations
Snapshots are how the Lumina community shares aurora sightings. When you capture a snapshot, you're not just posting a photo — you're recording a data point that includes the space weather conditions, moon state, sky quality, and your location at the moment you saw (or didn't see) aurora.
What a snapshot captures
Every snapshot automatically records the conditions at the time you took it:
- Aurora probability — both Field and Plan mode values
- Space weather — IMF Bz, solar wind speed, hemispheric power
- Moon conditions — phase, illumination, altitude, azimuth
- Sky quality — SQM from your saved location
- Location — approximate coordinates
- Your notes — free text describing what you saw
- Visibility verdict — what did you actually capture or see?
This makes snapshots valuable for the whole community — they build up a record of what conditions actually produced visible aurora at different latitudes, which helps everyone calibrate their expectations.
Public vs private
Snapshots can be public (visible on your profile and the community feed) or private (visible only to you in your diary). Public snapshots show an approximate location (not your exact coordinates) and your username only - your email address remains private.
The community feed on the Snapshots page shows recent public snapshots from all users, ordered by time. It's a great way to see what other people are seeing in real time during an event.
Trust system
Lumina maintains a trust score for each user based on the quality and consistency of their snapshots. Every observation is evaluated against the actual conditions — Did the space weather support visible aurora at your location? Were your timings consistent? Did the moon and cloud conditions match what you reported?
Trust scores use a Bayesian model that starts neutral and becomes more confident as you contribute more verified observations. Your trust label (new → developing → trusted → highly trusted) appears on your profile and helps the community gauge whose reports to weigh most heavily during an event.
Badges
Separate from the trust system, Lumina awards achievement badges for specific milestones. These are automatically detected from your snapshot history — no manual review needed. Some examples:
- First Light — your first naked-eye aurora sighting. The one you never forget.
- New Moon — captured a sighting under perfectly dark skies (moon illumination < 5%).
- Against the Odds — got a positive sighting when the Field probability was below 40%. You gambled and won.
- Night Owl — captured a snapshot between 2 and 4 AM. The serious hours.
- Persistent — stuck with it through five or more nights of no-show before your first success. Proper dedication.
Offline snapshots
Aurora often happens in places with patchy mobile reception. Lumina handles this gracefully — if you create a snapshot while offline, it goes into an offline queue and syncs automatically when you're back online. The snapshot still records the correct timestamp and conditions from the moment you captured it.
How to contribute useful snapshots
- Be honest about visibility. A "didn't see anything" snapshot is just as valuable as a positive sighting — it helps calibrate what conditions don't produce visible aurora.
- Add notes. Mention whether you saw colour visually or only on camera, how long the display lasted, and any interesting features (pulsating patches, fast-moving rays, etc.).
- Upload photos. A photo with exposure details helps others understand what was visible to the naked eye vs the camera.