http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/sun/magnetic.html

In a nutshell, the old cycle is dark on the left white on the right in the northern hemisphere, and white on the left dark on the right in the southern, as we view the magnetogram and call the top the northern hemisphere by the earth convention.

For the new cycle to appear, there shoud be white on the left dark on the right in the northern hemisphere, and black on the left white on the right in the southern.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=0DF9B3CD-802A-23AD-4984-5AC0C6D42605

http://www.denmark.dk/en/menu/AboutDenmark/ScienceResearch/ResearchAreas/ClimateResearch/CosmicRaysAndClimate/

Amazingly, we don’t have a lot of measuring devices that look at solar minimum effects. It’s as if we are attracted by what is bright and shiny but iignore what is ominously quiet. The sun (and all the other suns out there), are nuclear devices. Ours protects us when it is active (and it has been VERY active this century, having doubled its protective shield). However, it now sleeps and our shield has been lowered. As a result we are being bombarded by not only our own sun’s stuff, but all the other stuff from other stars. I would REALLY love to get my hands on atmospheric aerosols (like water vapor, not from my hairspray) that are in the air since we started noticing the sun was about to take a snooze.

http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/govrel/news.cfm?story=44222

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/eit_284/512/

0 on August 1-2,
7 on August 3-5,
8 on August 6-7,
9 on August 8-10,
8 on August 11-13,
0 on August 14-20,
9 on August 21,
8 on August 22-30,
17 on August 31,
14 on September 1,
8 on September 2-5,
0 on September 6-27,
9 on September 28-30.

From the daily numbers, monthly means are deduced, then smoothed monthly means and yearly means. It’s these yearly numbers that are generally used in graphs showing the evolution of the sunspot activity in the course of the years.

I have been checking on the 3 to 5 August 2007 dates you sighted as having a sunspot number of 7 for a single event and verified the accuracy of your report based on the SOHO images and sunspot numbers shown on this page and referenced as “DAILY SUNSPOT NUMBERS”

ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/2007

I have also found other, equally official, pages which report a value of 11 for the same dates, referenced as “SESC Sunspot Number”.

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/old_indices/2007_DSD.txt

Clearly there are at minimum, two methods of calculating sunspot numbers which may not be in agreement or more likely being used for different purposes. We are trespassing on the reserve of a small private club and I am sure the club members understand the rules but we may not. As we are in a period of very low solar activity, care will be required when referencing anything called a “sunspot number” because every digit counts.

Over at SolarCycle24.com they use the abbreviation “SSN” which based on usage I now believe stands for “SESC Sunspot Number” not “SunSpot Number”. As I indicated, a small private club. I am starting to understand why values at this website are not in agreement with those at SWPC.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I have a lot of reading to do.

Mike

I have looked at the SOHO data for August 3 to 5, 2007. Relative to SC24 #981 and #990, the August 3 to 5 sunspot is a single sport which is relatively large and well defined. By August 6 it had gown to three well defined spots. If the sunspot for August 3 to 5, 2007 was a 7, #990 should be a 1 or 2.

Over at solarcycle24.com they just increased the value for #990 from 11 to 12! The source of the change is Belgium which is reporting one group with two spots. I just looked at the SOHO images which are less than 10 minutes old and there is nothing there!
http://www.solarcycle24.com/

I am going to have to do some serious fact checking on this. This is becoming quite strange. I will upload some more Blinks in the morning. I am not buying any of this.

Mike

Thank you for the calcification on the calculation of sunspot values. I will check on the 3 to 5 August 2007 dates you referenced for counts below 11. Are there any other dates which dates which may be of interest or online examples? I would like them for future reference. I can turn one of these animations around within a few minutes and would appreciate as much background material as I can lay my hands on. I suspect we are going to be doing this for much of 2008. Is there any good reference material available? I don’t want to become an astrophysicist but would like some basic background information on scoring sunspots.

NASA has an incredibly good image database available. I wonder if they have images with a higher resolution than 1024×1024?

Based on the two Blink Comparator graphics I provided for sunspot #990 what do you think of the score of 11 which NASA assigned? As I indicated in another post the sunspot #990 did not last much longer than 24 hours and was very difficult to track towards the end. SC24 sunspot #981 was much better defined and lasted longer.

If you are looking at the animations be sure to expand the image size in IE to a full 1024×1024. You can always stop an animation be pressing “Esc” and restart it with “F5”. On a restart you will have to resize the image again.

Mike

Look at the four day record.
ftp://howard.astro.ucla.edu/pub/obs/drawings/dr080412.jpg
ftp://howard.astro.ucla.edu/pub/obs/drawings/dr080413.jpg
ftp://howard.astro.ucla.edu/pub/obs/drawings/dr080414.jpg
ftp://howard.astro.ucla.edu/pub/obs/drawings/dr080415.jpg

Activity was reported only on 2008-04-13 and 2008-04-14, which is what I am seeing in the SOHO images. This is a 24 hour wonder and the region is back to being an active plage but still has a sunspot count of 11 from some sources. I ran an animated Blink Comparator for all SOHO images for 2008-04-15 and could find no sunspots, Mt. Wilson is correct. I will concede NASA an active SC24 plage and one pathetic sunspot between 2008-04-13 and 2008-04-14 with an undeserved score of 11, but the rules are the rules. The plage could always develop another sunspot so it must be watched.

There is a nice write up on Mt. Wilson. Their big problem is clouds!

Mt. Wilson The 150-Foot Solar Tower Sunspot Drawing
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/150_draw.html

Mike

I ask Leif Svalgaard and this is what his answer was over at CA comment #120.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2983#comment-235992

I went into NASA SOHO archives to download and examined the high resolution (1024×1024) images for the first SC24 sunspot #981 which was first observed on 2008/01/04 and persisted for three days. Here are the results.

Images used in NASA Press release 2008-01-04 14:24 & 14:28
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/3149/sunspot200801041424ab6.gif

Best images from 2008-01-05 06:24 & 06:26
http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/1548/sunspot200801050624or8.gif

In the image from 2008-01-05 there are three clearly desirable sunspots and three to four smaller sunspots.

Note this little gem in the NASA press release,

Solar Cycle 24 Begins
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jan_solarcycle24.htm
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/images/solarcycle24/newspot.jpg

“Sunspot 981 was small–only about as wide as Earth, which counts as small on the grand scale of the sun–and it has already faded away. But its three day appearance on Jan. 4-6 was enough to convince most solar physicists that Solar Cycle 24 is underway.”

If sunspot #981 was “small” how should NASA characterize sunspot #990?

Mike

This formula you report is not the SESC formula to which many of us are accustomed.

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/3599/sunspeckmdiigrmagblink2tq3.gif

Mike