Linking to AuroraWatch UK

If you wish to include a link to AuroraWatch UK please use the URL http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/ and refer to the site as “AuroraWatch UK”; no permission is needed. If you wish to include AuroraWatch UK images in your site please select one of the options below, embedding the images directly will not work. If your site is hosted using HTTPS then you will need to change our URLs to use use the HTTPS protocol.

AuroraWatch UK status

To include a box showing the current AuroraWatch UK status, as shown above, copy and paste the following HTML code into your web page:

<iframe scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" width="300" height="100" src="//aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/external/status_text"></iframe>

AuroraWatch UK status and plot

To include a box showing the current AuroraWatch UK status and a plot of the most recent activity, as shown above, copy and paste the following HTML code into your web page:

<iframe scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" width="550" height="480" src="//aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/external/rolling_status_text"></iframe>

Altering the look with style sheets

You can adjust the look of the included text to match your site by using a style sheet. Append ?css=CSSURL to the iframe src attribute, where CSSURL is the URL of your CSS document. If you load the iframe with the HTTPS protocol then the CSS document must also be loaded over HTTPS for it to have any effect.

For example, to make the text italic you can use a style sheet similar to http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/css/example.css. Include it as below:

<iframe scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" width="300" height="100" src="//aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/external/status_text?css=http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/css/example.css"></iframe>

This will appear in your web page as:

Altering the link target

You can alter the link target in the iframe by adding the query parameter target and setting the value to _top or _blank; _top will cause the links to be opened in the same window and _blank will cause the links to be opened in a new window. If you are combining the css and target query parameters remember to separate them with a “&”.

Why can I not just embed the images?

The iframe method has a number of advantages:

• We are able to modify the image URL without breaking sites which embed the graphics.
• We can ensure that the images are reloaded at an appropriate frequency.
• We can ensure that a link to the AuroraWatch UK home page is included; ensuring that your readers can sign up for AuroraWatch UK alerts, and that we get credit for our work.