Languages
Pages
Legal
1
Counting Sunspots
Leif SvalgaardProject ASTRO
Aug. 3, 2013
2
What We are Going to Cover Today
• How to find Sunspot Drawings on the Internet
• How to Count Groups and Spots
• How to Construct Your Own Sunspot Catalog
• Making Graphs
• Historical View
• Questions & Answers
• Looking Through a Real [Modern] Telescope
3
Sunspot Drawings from Locarnohttp://www.specola.ch/e/drawings.html
Locarno, Switzerland
Click there
4
Sunspot Drawings from Locarno
Click
Click
5
This is the drawing
Click to see a larger version
Get to know his handwriting…
Groups Spots Class Latitude
R = 10*g + f = 50+28 = 78
R Wolf = 0.6 * R = 51
Marco
2
7
1
1
2
13
6
Kanzelhöhe
Locarno
Kanzelhöhe
7
11
Mt. Wilson
25 Jul
6
63
69
7
SDO/HMI
2013-Jul-26
WELocarno
SDO/HMI
Mt. Wilson
8
Enter your Estimates into a Table
SIDC [Solar Influences Data Analysis Center] is the Official Keeper of the International Sunspot Number. They produce daily [preliminary], monthly, and yearly reports and is the definitive source for Sunspot Numbers http://sidc.be/
Recall the ‘raw’ Relative Sunspot Number Definition: R = 10*groups + spots
9
Here is a chart I maintain daily
10
Counting Sunspots Only Becomes Real
Fun When You Make a Graph
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
2013.500 2013.510 2013.520 2013.530 2013.540 2013.550 2013.560 2013.570
Sunspot Numbers for July 2013
LOC
SIDC
Leif NOAA
Rudolf Wolf Alfred Wolfer
http://spaceweather.com/
You can get the NOAA sunspot number daily from
It does not have the 0.6 k-factor
0.6
11
And of Great Science Value When Graphed over Many Years (Centuries)
2009.0
Now
12
Useful and Interesting Websites
• http://sidc.be/products/meu/ • http://www.specola.ch/e/drawings.html • http://cesar.kso.ac.at/sunspot_drawings/ • ftp://howard.astro.ucla.edu/pub/obs/drawings • http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/quar_DSD.txt • http://spaceweather.com/ • http://www.leif.org/research/ • http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/solar_indices.html• http://hirweb.nict.go.jp/sedoss/solact3 • http://wso.stanford.edu/