[jesseam]

a new sunspot has just appeared Is this the beginning of cycle # 24$

[SuziQ]

a new sunspot has just appeared Is this the beginning of cycle # 24$

SirKit pointed that out to me yesterday. He's been watching for several weeks, waiting to see when they would return.

[Old Professer]

We have at least a couple of fellows on here who post about sunspots; went looking myself and lost this thread but found it so I'll try to post a couple of the latest pix I could find:

#10981 Supposed first sighting January 4th 2008

#10982 was then reported Feburary 6th as first sunspot but NOAA changed that to last of the old sunspot cycle

Note the top left of each picture; in 10981 the spot is located around ten o'clock high, in the next, 10982 is now at around 12 o'clock low and still alone; the dark lines are cold spots. This comment is from the second picture on this site:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080206.html

[Old Professer]

Oops; left something out (all of you who went to link may have spotted it):

“Editor’s note: This APOD originally ran under the title “A Sunspot in the New Solar Cycle.” But even though the new solar cycle has begun, the old one has not ended yet and may run concurrently with the new cycle for up to a year or so. This sunspot is now thought to belong to the old cycle, not the new one, based on its measured magnetic polarity and location.”

I didn’t use the picture from the linked site because it was too large and I couldn’t resize it and keep the proportions.

[Old Professer]

Just found this but not sure if it directly compares to the other shots:

Recent activity: The geomagnetic field was quiet on February 25. Solar wind speed ranged between 369 and 442 km/s.

Solar flux measured at 20h UTC on 2.8 GHz was 71.4. The planetary A index was 3 (STAR Ap - based on the mean of three hour interval ap indices: 3.0). Three hour interval K indices: 11120100 (planetary), 11221111 (Boulder).

The background x-ray flux is below the class A1 level.

At midnight there was 1 spotted region on the visible solar disk. The solar flare activity level was very low. No C class events were recorded during the day.

New region 10983 emerged in the southwest quadrant.

[Old Professer]

Open the link in my last post and scroll down to see the gif image; I couldn’t get it to post.

Note the red line.

Whether this is truly the first first sunspot of cycle 24 or just the fourth first sunspot of cycle 24 might take a few days for confirmation.

It should get a lot more active than this to be convincing.