After the August 21st sunspot debacle where SIDC reported a spot and initially NOAA didn’t, mostly due to the report from the Catania Observatory in Italy, we have another similar situation. On September 11th, a plage area developed. Here is the SOHO MDI for 1323UTC:
Find the sunspot in this image – Click for a larger image
Here is another from a couple hours later, 1622UTC :
Find the sunspot in this image – Click for a larger image
Note that in the large versions of both the above images, you’ll see a tiny black speck. That’s NOT the “sunspot” but burned out pixels on the SOHO CCD imager.
To help you locate the area of interest, here is the SOHO magnetogram for the period, as close as one is available to the above image time. It shows the disturbance with the classic N-S polarity of solar cycle 23 close to the equator:
Click for a larger image
The Catania Observatory in Italy included it on their daily sketch, as barely visible:
Click for a larger image
By contrast, the Mount Wilson Observatory in California did NOT show this on their daily drawing:
Click for larger image
The Catania photosphere image for that period did not show any disturbance:
Click for larger image
But the Catania chromosphere image did show the disturbance:
Click for a larger image
At the time our resident solar physicist Leif Svaalgard postulated and then retracted:
Leif Svalgaard (17:40:36)
Leif Svalgaard (07:06:37) :
BTW, right now Catania is seeing a pair of tiny spots at 7 degree North latitude (these are old cycle 23 spots): http://www.ct.astro.it/sun/draw.jpg
I don’t think NOAA will assign a region number to these spots unless the region grows in size.
Well, I guessed wrong:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/forecasts/SRS/0912SRS.txt:
I. Regions with Sunspots. Locations Valid at 11/2400Z
Nmbr Location Lo Area Z LL NN Mag Type
1001 N06E14 179 0020 Bxo 03 02 Beta
Please welcome cycle 23 region 11001.
And then a few minutes later went on to say:
Leif Svalgaard (18:35:44)
Leif Svalgaard (17:40:36) :
Please welcome cycle 23 region 11001.
REPLY: The MDI hardly shows it at all. – Anthony
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/l
I would say not at all, And Mt. Wilson neither:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/intro.html
Kitt Peak NSO had it:
The region died sometime between 17h and 20h UT. One may wonder why this Tiny Tim was elevated to an ‘active region’. Perhaps NOAA is getting nervous now after all the brouhaha and don’t want to be accused of ‘missing’ spots…
Anyway, it is now gone.
And Robert Bateman added:
Robert Bateman (21:45:42)
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/latest/DSD.txt
NOAA gave it a go.
2008 09 11 67 12 20 1 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
So let’s recap:
We have a disturbance that shows up briefly, then disappears in a couple of hours, some observers call it a spot, others do not, or their time of observation (Mt. Wilson for example) was perhaps past the time of visible activity. The “spot” itself is even less pronounced than the sunspeck that was elevated to sunspot status on August 21st, yet NOAA assigns it a spot status this time, where on August 21st they did not, only doing so AFTER the SIDC came out with their monthly report on September 1st. See my report about that event here and the follow up email I got from SIDC when I questioned the issue.
Now 100 + years ago would we have recorded this as a spot? Doubtful. It is most pronounced on imagery from satellite or specialized telescopes. Would the old methods such as a dark filter or projection used 100 years ago have seen this? As I pointed out before, we now have a non-homogeneous sunspot record mixing old techniques and instrumentation with new and much more sensitive instrumentation, and more coverage. Yet even with this we have disagreement between observatory reports.
How long does a sunspeck (or sunspot) have to be present before it ranks as countable? What standards are in place to ensure that observers use the same type of equipment and techniques to count spots? Is there any such standard? From the perspective of the public and laymen at large, it seems that there’s some randomness to this science process.
In my opinion, science would be better served if these observational questions and the dataset inhomogeneity is addressed.
I’m sure Leif will have some commentary to add.
And as Robert Bateman writes in comments: So, we are still having these SC23 bubbles popping up. Why won’t this cycle give it up? The $64k question.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
From what I read here there is absolutely no agreement about variations in the power of the sun over the past 30- 50 years as compared with any previous period of time.
So, lets just start with a clean slate and see what happens to global temperatures during the current period which is obviously one with a quieter sun than we have had for some time.
Strange, global temperatrure has been dropping for two years.
Strange, the warming trend reached a plateau after the 1998 El Nino and remained flat despite a waning sun only for so long as the Pacific remained warmer than average.
Let Earth do the talking.
Does the Catania Observatory calibrate thier images with darks or check for random changes in the noise (like you will find in certain Kodak imagers)?
As for the noaa numbers , all I did was to check to see who was posting the official numbers and copy & paste them. If they are bogus, throw them out.
They are still up at that site:
2008 09 10 67 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2008 09 11 67 12 20 1 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2008 09 12 66 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/quar_DSD.txt
I have few sources that are up to date: SIDC in Belgium posts updates once a week. Will see what they post on Monday as to the EISN (Estimated International Sunspot Number) for 9/11.
I do check Solar Cycle 24’s SOHO image and IPS Culgoora Obs. white light and H Alpha images regularly.
I have no access to data to go back and verify that the Tiny Tims are nothing more than dead pixels on a few CCD’s.
But I do recall that the last 2 spots with numbers have been given SC23 designations (if memory serves me correctly), and I could see all of them recorded on Calgoora’s H-Alpha and one of them on the White Light image.
Have we had any SC24 spots that are not Tiny Tims?
http://www.nwra-az.com/spawx/comp.html
This comparison shows an observed sunspot number on 09/11, and a 10.7 cm derived. They don’t always agree, and in this case they don’t.
Do we have a bonafide white light image for 9/11 that shows a sunspot or sunspeck, or are we at 53 days and counting?
Until prevented with good evidence to the contrary, I remain highly skeptical of any hidden agenda or undue influence in the daily or monthly sunspot count.
The use of (at least) three different procedures by SIDC – one to obtain information for the daily bulletins, an automated procedure to obtain the *preliminary* monthly numbers, then a third to derive the “definitive” numbers (six months later) – is hardly ideal, but it is a fairly transparent process, and does not appeared to have undergone any changes to “cover up” for an unexpectedly low Cycle 24.
If not for the concern about possible solar effects on climate, very few people would be paying any attention to this.
It would be like fretting over the count of cumulus clouds on any particular fair-weather day. Nobody would bother with it.
Regrettably, it is only going to get worse.
– IF – the sun is still this blank this winter, EVERYBODY will have seized on it. Every winter storm and cold snap will be blamed on the blank sun.
Leif, you’ll be getting lots of media inquiries, so you can get ready for “questions” like this:
“Man-made CO2 has caused the solar cycle to fail.”
“Military and commercial use of space has created pollution which has choked off the sunspot cycle.”
“We have reached a solar ‘tipping-point.'”
“We only have ten years left to fix the sun. Compact fluorescent bulbs aren’t just an option anymore – they’re our only hope.”
Robert Bateman (14:26:46) :
Does the Catania Observatory calibrate thier images with darks or check for random changes in the noise (like you will find in certain Kodak imagers)?
As far as I know Catania follows the established rule that sunspot count must be visual and not derived from photographic or CCD images. The drawings are made by hand on a piece of white paper onto which the solar image is projected.
The f10.7 flux is integrated over the total solar disk and will not show such a small spot that covered only 1/100,000 of the solar surface unless you observe f10.7 100,000 times more accurately than we actually can.
John-X (14:52:33) :
Until prevented with good evidence to the contrary, I remain highly skeptical of any hidden agenda or undue influence in the daily or monthly sunspot count.
I agree.
Leif, you’ll be getting lots of media inquiries.
Already getting these, although quite as funny [?, or sad] as the ones you came up with:
http://www.newscientist.com/search.ns?doSearch=true&query=svalgaard
The last article of the three near the end distorts my view. The journalist asked what would happen IF the solar influence was strong. My answer was that SHOULD it turn out that the sun is a major player [which I doubt, but we don’t know for sure] AND solar activity goes down, THEN …
The ‘no room for complacency’ was totally her own invention. Here is the quote:
“There is no room for complacency, Svalgaard warns: “If the Earth does cool during the next sunspot crash and we do nothing, when the sun’s magnetic activity returns, global warming will return with a vengeance.”
It is very hard to counter such distortions.
Having cited the “all time high” reports myself, I must say that I can’t see any reason why correcting the sunspot record to be consistent over time would raise anyone’s hackles, even if a person WAS improperly “results oriented.”
First, the evidence that 20th century warming was caused by relatively high levels of solar activity in no way depends on those levels having been the highest on record.
Second, the “all time high” appellations that I have seen do not come from looking at the sunspot record at all, but come from GCR record. It was Sami Solanki who coined the “grand maximum” term to describe late 20th century solar activity, after studying GCR isotopes going back 11,000 years. Obviously the GCR record is not affected by any tinkering with the sunspot record.
Svalgaard does not provide any evidence for his claim that correcting the sunspot record:
He might be right, but I have never myself encountered this kind of resistance to reason and evidence from the skeptic side of the global warming debate. Maybe Leif can provide us with a link.
My post here, with some commentary on the likely political motivation for calling sunspecks sunspots.
Oh, and one I forgot…
“It’s Mother Gaia’s only way to cool down after our failure to implement the Kyoto Protocol.”
Leif Svalgaard (15:26:03) :
The ‘no room for complacency’ was totally her own invention.
Should have been ‘his’ own … The author is Stuart Clark who has written an otherwise very readable book about the great 19th century solar observer Richard Carrington: “The Sun King”. Highly recommended.
Here is the quote:
“There is no room for complacency, Svalgaard warns: “If the Earth does cool during the next sunspot crash and we do nothing, when the sun’s magnetic activity returns, global warming will return with a vengeance.”
It is very hard to counter such distortions.
SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory), scheduled for launch in December, will vastly increase the resolution, detail and frequency of observation of the sun.
Here are some tidbits about SDO:
“SDO will generate approximately 1.5 Terabytes of data per day.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Dynamics_Observatory
“AIA (Atmospheric Imaging Assembly)…Data will include images of the Sun in 10 wavelengths every 10 seconds.”
“SDO’s AIA instrument will have 1/2 greater image resolution than STEREO and 3/4 greater imaging resolution than SOHO.
“The image cadence also varies. SDO takes 1 image every 0.10 of a second. At best STEREO takes 1 image every 3 minutes and SOHO takes 1 image every 12 minutes.”
http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/mission/instruments.php
Alec Rawls (15:29:51) :
First, the evidence that 20th century warming was caused by relatively high levels of solar activity in no way depends on those levels having been the highest on record.
That is conditionally true, depending on what ‘on record’ means. If we are talking about the last 400 years, I think most people would find it hard to say that the recent warming was caused by the Sun, had the sunspot number in the 17th century been as high as now.
Second, the “all time high” appellations that I have seen do not come from looking at the sunspot record at all, but come from GCR record. It was Sami Solanki who coined the “grand maximum” term to describe late 20th century solar activity, after studying GCR isotopes going back 11,000 years. Obviously the GCR record is not affected by any tinkering with the sunspot record.
I have already referred to Muescheler et al.’s rebuttal of the Solanki et al. paper. Solar activity in the 18th century [apart from the first couple of decades] was as high as now as determined by 14C and 10Be data.
Svalgaard does not provide any evidence for his claim that correcting the sunspot record is controversial and is being met with stiff resistance from the ‘all-time high’ crowd.[…]
Maybe Leif can provide us with a link.
Here are some [variants of the same, actually]:
http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGU2008/11765/EGU2008-A-11765.pdf
K. Mursula, I. Usoskin, O. Yakovchouk, Does sunspot number calibration by the “magnetic needle” make sense?, J. Atm. Solar-Terr. Phys., doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2008.04.017, 2008, in print.
AGU Joint meeting 2008, abstract SP23A-06:
Does sunspot number calibration by the “magnetic needle” make sense? by
* Mursula, K, Usoskin, I, Yakovchouk, O,
http://www.agu.org/meetings/ja08/ja08-sessions/ja08_SP23A.html
Unfortunately Mursula didn’t show for his presentation, but it is clear that they have submitted this to every conference they could find who would take it.
A similar situation arose about six years ago when I pointed out that the there was “No doubling of the Sun’s magnetic field into the last 100 years” as was claimed by Lockwood et al. in an article in Nature in 1999, following up on an old [1978] suggestion by me
that it had [I was wrong]. We pointed out that the geomagnetic aa-index on which the claim was based is wrongly calibrated. It took us five years fighting peer-review referees trying to publish our paper on this. In every instance Lockwood or one of colleagues was one of the reviewers, and in every case the paper was soundly rejected. You may find the exchange at http://www.leif.org/research/No%20Doubling%20of%20Open%20Flux.pdf illuminating. It first gives our paper, then the peer-review.
Eventually, the community has come around and realized that the aa-index indeed was wrong and that the method used by Lockwood was flawed. The latest papers by Lockwood’s group show substantial agreement with our point of view, as described here: http://www.leif.org/research/Seminar-LMSAL.pdf
. Jump to page 16 if you want to avoid some technical details.
So, yes, if you attempt to overthrow accepted wisdom, you do find stiff resistance. I think that applies to any field and I also think it is proper. The ‘rebels’ must show extraordinary cause and must be challenged. Eventually, if the claim has merit, resistance will subside, although [as I have already said] you will very rarely see a retraction of any earlier paper. They just fade away.
Please pardon my humble oppinion here, but isn’t this all much ado about nothing? We know that sunspot activity has been extremely low, low enough to have an influence on the Earth’s climate in the sunspot theory is correct, so what does it matter if certain scientific research institutions decide to count specks as spots? It is still going to get cold, if the theory is true, and the Warmists are going to be stuck in the unfortunate position of explaining why.
Now, unlike the past, we have very good images of the sun, which I assume are stored by NASA or SOHO or some other organization so researchers in the future will be able to go back in the record and say that according to a standard, that is not wrapped up with the emotional drive to have one’s preconcieved notions of what should be proved correct.
A spotless day is still a spotless day, and it seems to me that we are having these spotless days in great abundance. What is the current count now? Over 400, last I heard. Is anyone out there keeping track of just the spotless days? What is the next big threashhold? 450 something? How many spotless days do we need to be truly record setting? 750-1000? Obviously, the sun would have to remain at its current level of activity for another year or two respectively to create something truly impressive, and I do not see how counting or not counting a few tiny sun specks is going to interfer with this, aside from slightly reducing the number.
Time will tell, but hopefully the results will make themselves obvious before the politicians and various other crooks are able to hoodwink the general public. As of today, there are 129 days until the next President of the United States is sworn in, and both of these idiots intend to “do something” about Global Warming. Let’s hope that nature proves herself in time.
Robert Bateman (14:26:46) :
Does the Catania Observatory calibrate thier images with darks or check for random changes in the noise (like you will find in certain Kodak imagers)?
Darks are not so important for solar images, as they are very bright. Darks are important only for long exposures. Much more important here are flats, i.e. flat frame adjustment. It is evident from the Catania photosphere image that flat frame calibration has not been performed, there are several large dust specs visible (i.e. the circular slightly darker features that are out of focus dust particles on a filter in front of the CCD).
Another thing is that the photosphere image appears to be a not-so-professional mosaic. The top right part is darker and is divided from the rest with a straight line (this appears to be the border between two frames).
Such an image would generate critical comments among amateur astronomers.
Could it be that the habit of counting these little specks that dissappear
overnight could just be a recent phenomenon?
I doubt anyone could get away with adjusting the past record in any significant way. Other methods have been employed to infer past solar activity besides counting sunspots that perhaps gives us a better understanding of past history.
From the article I referenced for Leif goes back 5000 years, using actual historical sunspot counts only for the last 400 years, and that includes only one of the three discrenible solar minimas of the last thousand years on the chart. An “adjuster” could start from there and draw pretty much whatever he wanted till the present and there would still be evidence of substantial increased solar activity during the last 400 years, even if the Maunder Minimum was completely disregarded.
This from Figure 4 of http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0706/0706.0385v1.pdf
Leif: When you say the “no room for complacency” bit was Clark’s own invention, do you mean just that phrase, or the sentence that followed as well?
It is the latter that is problematic. If high levels of solar activity do cause global warming, then 20th century warming is largely or perhaps entirely attributable to the high (even if not “all time high”) levels of solar activity post 1940. It is certainly not attributable to CO2, given the lack of a greenhouse warming atmospheric signature, or any other evidence for CO2 based warming.
The IPCC models completely omit solar magnetic effects, so that when the models are fit to the historic data, the warming effects of this omitted variable get misattributed to whatever correlated variables they happen to have in their models. In particular, since CO2 has also been historically high in the late 20th century, solar magnetic warming effects get misattributed to CO2. The IPCC then projects this phony warming effect of CO2 forward to make its claims about the dire consequences if we “do nothing” about CO2.
The quote that is attributed to you from Clark fits this story line exactly. If Clark put those words in your mouth, it is serious indeed, and he needs to issue a correction. If they are your words, I think you need to own up to it, and hopefully issue a correction of your own.
If solar activity is driving global temperature, then warming will not return “with a vengance” when solar activity rebounds. It will just return. Solar cooling will have showed that the feared warming effects of CO2 were misattributed, eliminating any need to “do something” about CO2.
My posts on the omitted variable problem here and here.
Quite an active thread, with no little hint of anamosity. Standards, no standards, some standards – who’s standard!…To count or not to count, that is the question. Whether it is noblier to count a sun speck or not…
(Sorry I like the Bard) –
My point is this. Man (non-pc) started counting sun spots because he found the sun, God’s perfect orb, imperfect. Telescopes were invented, and this made the project easier. Later curiosity overcame these people and they wanted to know if there is a link between sunspots and the earth. Vision was all they had because radio, radar, advanced optics and all the rest were in the future.
THE NUMBER DOESN’T MATTER, what does is any link between solar sunspot activity, magnetism, etc and the temperature of the earth. Problem is, that that link is just now being explored and little is known about it.
OK, the sun is asleep. Now let’s see what the earth does. If it cools over time, then perhaps there is a link. If it remains the same, then maybe there is no link. If it warms, well most folks here need to reexamine their thoughts on global warming.
The problem is, the earth is like my kitchen stove. It is a glass top range. When I turn on the burner, it takes the pan some time to warm up because the heat of the coil takes time to warm the glass, therefore the pan. Likewise the glass holds the heat when I turn the burner off, cooling very slowly.
The earth is a huge heat sink, those that say the oceans can hold a lot of heat aren’t blowing smoke. It takes time for the heat to escape (and the earth to cool!) This is basic physics folks!
Dueling papers is like Dueling Banjos – only without a catchy tune. As a retired engineer I liked having Bell Labs, UL and the other standards groups working to develop set ways of doing things, making design easy. That’s not happening now when competing standards are vying in the marketplace (Toshiba and Sony on DVD and Blueray as an example) and may the most popular (maybe not the best) win.
Same thing here. The sunspots were initially a way to gauge the Sun’s activity. There are many other ways now. Most are pointing to a sleeping sun.
Should there be a standard that can be applied to the history as well? Sure.
Is it the only measure of solar activity? No, not any more.
Just make sure there is a Rosetta Stone to translate the language.
Mike
Alec Rawls (17:10:32) :
Leif: When you say the “no room for complacency” bit was Clark’s own invention, do you mean just that phrase, or the sentence that followed as well?
Complacency was Stuart’s. The sentence that followed is an accurate quote. What was left out was the context. Stuart’s push was for a combination of solar and AGW, and we were talking about the hypothetical case [which I perhaps didn’t make perfectly clear] that if the solar ‘crash’ was sufficient to overpower an increase caused by AGW, THEN, of course, when solar activity returned, we would get a double whammy.
It is the latter that is problematic
No, answering a hypothetical can NEVER be problematic…
What may be problematic is that it was not made clear to the reader that it was a hypothetical.
If Clark put those words in your mouth, it is serious indeed, and he needs to issue a correction. If they are your words, I think you need to own up to it, and hopefully issue a correction of your own.
He did not put the words in my mouth, he omitted to mention that we were discussing a hypothetical case, and I have pointed that out often enough.
Personally, I don’t give a whit about the AGW debate as it has gone past what reasonable people should occupy themselves with [both pro and con]. I try to lay out the scientific case for solar variability [seen through my glasses, even pointing out that there is controversy – and even the latter some people can’t believe] and to correct [where possible] when people drive the ‘correlations’ past their ‘sell by’ date, f.ex. the notion that the temperature was ALWAYS low when solar activity was low. I also try to correct some of the circular reasoning that is going on, like “TSI/cosmic rays/whatever must vary because otherwise how do you account for the LIA”.
Most of my colleagues take the point of view that as scientists they should just ‘do their thing’ and otherwise keep their mouth shut. As I am beholden to no one, it may be easier for me to explain [the best I can] the science even as the story is still unfolding. What the public may not understand [and it up to us to try to make that clear] is that at the ‘front’ of science you will find many points of view, most contradictory, and that a very large percentage will end up on the trash heap. Without that in nay way diminishing the scientists that were wrong. It is often said that the impact of a scientific paper is not how ‘right’ it is, but how much debate it stirs up. The perfect example is Lockwood’s 1999 paper. It was wrong, but opened up a vigorous debate that in the end has led to better understanding.
If solar activity is driving global temperature, then warming will not return “with a vengance” when solar activity rebounds. It will just return.
I don’t know how many times I must explain that our hypothetical case was that if solar ‘cooling’ overpowered an assumed AGW for a while, then when solar returned, we would have the combined effect of solar and AGE, hence the ‘vengeance’. But, my experience with human nature somehow tells me that it does not matter what I say, people will read it the way that fits their own views the best.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (16:31:27) :
Another thing is that the photosphere image appears to be a not-so-professional mosaic. The top right part is darker and is divided from the rest with a straight line (this appears to be the border between two frames).
How many times must I repeat that the sunspot count is not done on the photograph or CCD image, but by vsiual inspection of the projected solar image on a white piece of paper, on whhich the drawing is made.
Leif Svalgaard (18:41:49) :
Alec Rawls (17:10:32) :
It would be better for your case that you didn’t refer to the geological record as the cosmic ray proxies come from trees (14C) or from ice cores (10Be), none of which is normally considered to be part of Geology.
Does this ancient BBC story from July, 2004, “Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high”, have any basis in fact?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3869753.stm
These periodic things like weather and sunspots do seem to be prone to extreme claims at either end of the cycle.
Tony Sidaway (20:04:08) :
Does this ancient BBC story from July, 2004, “Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high”, have any basis in fact?
There are people that claim this to be observed. Since most of the purported increase in sunspots is claimed to have take place in the last few centuries and there is evidence that the sunspot number may be artificially higher in recent times, the claim, that recent activity is the highest in a 1000 years, is very doubtful.
More than a thousand year high:
“The level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional — the last period of similar magnitude occurred over 8,000 years ago. The Sun was at a similarly high level of magnetic activity for only ~10% of the past 11,400 years, and almost all of the earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episode.”
“Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years”
http://cc.oulu.fi/%7Eusoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf
“11,000 Year Sunspot Number Reconstruction ”
http://gcmd.nasa.gov/KeywordSearch/Metadata.do?Portal=GCMD&KeywordPath=%5BParameters%3ACategory%3D%27EARTH+SCIENCE%27%2CTopic%3D%27SUN-EARTH+INTERACTIONS%27%2CTerm%3D%27SOLAR+ACTIVITY%27%2CVariable%3D%27SUNSPOTS%27%5D&OrigMetadataNode=GCMD&EntryId=NOAA_NCDC_PALEO_2005-015&MetadataView=Brief&MetadataType=0&lbnode=gcmd3b
‘Darks are not so important for solar images, as they are very bright. Darks are important only for long exposures. Much more important here are flats, i.e. flat frame adjustment. It is evident from the Catania photosphere image that flat frame calibration has not been performed, there are several large dust specs visible (i.e. the circular slightly darker features that are out of focus dust particles on a filter in front of the CCD). ‘
Ok, I see the dust donuts on the photospere image but not the chromsphere. Yes, they would be on the filter but not on the ccd chip. I hadn’t looked, just noted the dark pixel in the
Soho image. Looked at the photo/chromo images in AstroArt and AIP4WIN. The donuts show up when I do an exponential stretch. Is there an ftp source for the FITS files?
May I respectively submit the following brief puzzlement to this forum as my small contribution to the debate on spottiness?
http://www.sillybooks.net/books/beetle_spots/beetle_spots.html