Historical aurora borealis catalog for Anatolia and Constantinople (hABcAC) during the Eastern Roman Empire period: Implications for past solar activity

Abstract

Herein, Anatolian aurorae are reviewed based on the existing catalogs to establish a relationship between the aurora observations and past solar activity during the Medieval period. For this purpose, historical aurora catalogs for Constantinople and Anatolia are compiled based on the existing catalogs and compared with those in the Middle East region. The available catalogs in the literature are mostly related to the records observed in Europe, Japan, China, Russia, and the Middle East. There is no study dealing only with the historical aurora observations recorded in Anatolia and Constantinople. The data of the catalog show that there is a considerable relationship between the aurora activity and past strong solar activity. High auroral activity around the extreme solar particle storm in 774/775 and the Medieval grand maximum in the 1100s in Anatolia and the Middle East is quite consistent with the past solar variability reported in other scientific literature.