The Mexican Array Radio Telescope (MEXART) is a transit instrument mainly dedicated to performing Interplanetary Scintillation (IPS) observations with a central operating frequency of 139.65 MHz. The main scientific objective is to perform studies of solar wind properties and space weather effects. MEXART initially operated with an analog beamformer (16x16 Butler matrix), which produced 16 fixed latitudinal beams. MEXART began operations and reported the first measurements of IPS sources. MEXART’s beamforming system had several problems, however. The North-South beams had poor directivity, with large side lobes, and the instrument did not achieve the expected performance. Therefore, we commissioned the design and construction of a digital back-end. The digital system solved the problems with the beamforming, increased the bandwidth, and improved significantly the instrument’s sensitivity. In this paper, we present the first light of MEXART’s digital system. We describe the new technical capabilities of the instrument, and we show some preliminary results: an estimation of the radio telescope’s sensitivity ($\Delta S_{min} = 2.28 \pm 0.23$ Jy), the transit of the Galaxy at 140 MHz with the simultaneous tracking of 62 latitudinal beams, and an example of an IPS observation and the single-station methodology to calculate the solar wind speed. The new technical capabilities of the radio telescope will provide the potential to participate in several scientific studies. These include solar wind properties, space weather forecasting, ionospheric perturbations, and astrophysical aims such as monitoring of repeating Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), and pulsars’ observations.

On 1 September 1859, occurred one of the most intense geomagnetic storm that has been documented in recent history. This storm is known as the Carrington Event. On the morning September 1st at around 11:15 UT, Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson observed in England, independently and for the first time, an intense white light solar flare. About 17 hours after this solar event, occurred the strongest geomagnetic perturbation ever recorded as well as a greatly extended red aurora, which covered unusually low latitudes. The red auroral display on September 2nd was reported in regions where this kind of phenomena are very rare, like in Cuba and Hawaii. Until now however, it was not known to scientists that the low latitude red aurora also registered in Mexico. At that time, Mexico was in a civil war, and there were very difficult conditions in which to establish astronomical and magnetic observatories. Nevertheless, the geomagnetic storm was observed with a maximum of intensity between 7:00-8:00 UTC and re- ported to a Mexican newspaper from five different locations (Mexico City, Queretaro, Guadalajara, Hidalgo, and Guanajuato) and registered also from at least in two additional sites (Michoacan and San Luis Potosı) in other historical documents. These records confirm that the Carrington geomagnetic storm was a global event with planetary repercussions, and that the Mexican low latitude region is susceptible to significant effects associated with intense space weather events.