A study of auroral displays photographed from the DMSP-2 satellite and from the Alaska meridian chain of stations

In the first part of the paper, a brief historical review of the progress of our knowledge on morphological aspects of the aurora is given. A particular emphasis is made in describing technical developments in auroral observations. In the second part, a large number of DMSP-2 photographs are examined in detail; in particular, substorm features, such as the initial brightening, the poleward expansion, westward traveling surges, eastward drifting patches, omega bands, torch-like structures, polar cap auroras, are illustrated. Whenever available, simultaneous photographs from the Alaska meridian chain of stations are used to describe in detail time variations of auroral displays before, during and after the passage of the satellite. In the last part, recent progress in understanding auroral phenomena is briefly reviewed from the point of view of magnetospheric physics.