http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage/Sun-039-s-Dead-Face-Nothing-out-of-the-Ordinary-Researchers-say-3.gif

Because there is no mention of what the gray lines mean, which are consistently much lower in cycle 23/24.

And one could easily say that in 1933 there were only 12 times that the sunspot number was 0 more than 15 days in a month and when by June 2008 it had already reached 10. This July will no doubt make it 11.

How has recent WMO data affected your prediction for Rmax for cycle 24?

“This is only a theory, of course, just as is the prevailing but nonetheless theoretical solar nuclear furnace core supposition.

Overwhelming and diverse evidence strongly suggests there is no nuclear fusion taking place in the sun’s core.

Instead, the sun, like its dormant companion Jupiter has a large planetary core surrounded by an abyssal sea of liquid hydrogen, metallic at the point it impinges upon the terra firma core.

Above the liquid hydrogen sea is a layer of hydrogen gas, all of which is encapsulated by the relatively thin, roiling plasmasized photospheric sheath. The predominant reaction taking place in the photosphere is molecular hydrogen being converted to atomic hydrogen and back to molecular again under the influence of immense electrical forces.

The only fusion taking place in the sun is in the photosphere where fresh molecular hydrogen gas breaches through the photosphere we call a sunspot. In the process of the freshly emerging hydrogen being converted from molecular to atomic and back again, it becomes entrained in powerful concentric magnetohydrodynamic flows that can be described as nothing less than a natural solar cyclotron!!

One need only examine the highest resolution images of a sunspot from the 1 meter Swedish Solar Telescope at Las Palmas in the Canary Islands for confirmation that below the clearly defined photosphere is nothing more than a dark gaseous interior! http://www.astro.su.se/groups/solar/solar.html

I have a theory as to what causes sunspots that is inextricably interwoven with the above theory of the sun’s actual composition.”

John Goetz Reply: It is likely it was sent automatically to the spam bucket.

I have observed the Moon for over 40 years in telescopes. I have never, ever seen recongnzable Earthshine past 3 days until now. I also never was able to make out all the features of the unlit portion until now. I have been ascribing it to light pollution striking, but now I’m not so sure.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/11jul_solarcycleupdate.htm

jonk: coronal holes are quite common in the years leading up to the minimum so nothing unusual there.

Robert: we think that the Sun did change polarities during the Maunder Minimum [cosmic ray generated radioactive nuclei in ice cores tell us that]. A possibility to consider is that the spots were there but were invisible as has been recently been discussed in this blog.