Temporal and spatial evolutions of a large sunspot group and great auroral storms around the Carrington event in 1859

In this article, we study the temporal and spatial evolutions of the source sunspot active region and visual aurorae and compare this storm with other extreme space weather events on the basis of their auroral spatial evolution.

Sunspot drawings by Schwabe, Secchi, and Carrington describe the position and morphology of the source active region at that time. Visual auroral reports from the Russian Empire, Iberia, Ireland, Oceania, and Japan fill the spatial gap of auroral visibility and revise the time series of auroral visibility in middle to low magnetic latitudes. The reconstructed time series is compared with magnetic measurements and shows the correspondence between low-latitude to mid-latitude aurorae and the phase of magnetic storms.