The disturbed magnetic area I mentioned yesterday has finally turned into what appears to be a real sunspot, but it is quite small:
Since magnetograms weren’t available to Galileo, Wolf, and Maunder, I wonder if a spot this small would have been detected in their time? Perhaps many of the spots in the period of the Maunder minimum were just to small to detect?
The solar flux is still quite low at 69, so we have a fairly quiet sun.
UPDATE: The spot remains without a number, and as seen (or not) on the latest SOHO MDI image, it is fading from view. It remains visible on the magnetogram. SIDC has a writeup about it here.
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Keep reading folks.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=0DF9B3CD-802A-23AD-4984-5AC0C6D42605
A link for Micajah (21:25:25) :, on how to view magnetograms of the sun
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://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/04/13/second-cycle-24-spot-a-tiny-tim-spot/ […]
I have just booked my 2008/2009 winter holidays for London as I have always wanted to go to a Thame Frost Fair!
[…] quiet. It has now been almost 2 and a half months since the last counted cycle 24 sunspot has been seen on April 13th, 2008. There was a tiny cycle 24 ”sunspeck” that appeared briefly on May 13th, but […]