Images of the aurora have a long historical and scientific importance. The first imaging of the aurora was done by hand. At the beginning of this century, photography, then a new technology was successfully used for the first time to study the aurora. Durign the IGY, S. Chapman and others constructed and operated all-sky cameras. Based upon these cameras, Feldstein found that the aurora is distributed along a belt called the auroral oval. This grant is to establish a new morphology based upon the new generation of imagers aboard satellites (e.g. DE, DMSP, and Viking). A preliminary study of DE and Viking images indicates that the study of these high quality data requires a very systematic approach. During the course of this study, it is planned to train a new generation of researchers who will focus on auroral morphology.
