The Polar Ionospheric X ray Imaging Experiment (PIXIE) on board the NASA/GGS POLAR spacecraft has been making observations of X rays emitted simultaneously over the entire auroral zone since March, 1996. PIXIE remotely senses the bremsstrahlung produced by the loss of multi-keV electrons from the magnetosphere into the ionosphere. In this study we examine twenty-six months (April 1996-July 1998) of X ray observations of the northern auroral region from the PIXIE instrument. X ray flux is obtained from the PIXIE observations, which allows us to produce for the first time synoptic auroral maps representing the precipitation of energetic electrons, as a function of geomagnetic activity. ¿ 1999 American Geophysical Union