[American in Israel]

All true, but as of right now, NO sunspots last I heard. Unusual isn’t it. Going to be one COLD winter.

[ETL]

The Sun is just now (finally) moving out of the ‘minimum’ phase for its 11-year sunspot cycle. Max is supposed be around 2011 or 2012. However, the cycle, at max, for the past 60 or so years (ie, during the increased warming phase) has had a remarkably high level of activity. I think it’s still up in the air, in terms of predictions, as to whether this next cycle (cycle 24) is going to be above normal or not.

[ETL]

From spaceweather.com for Wednesday, Nov 12, 2008:

"The sun is waking up and winking at us today," says Wainwright.

The "smile" is a filament of plasma connecting the two magnetic poles of sunspot 1008. Magnetograms of the active region reveal a N-S polarity characteristic of Solar Cycle 24: this is a new-cycle sunspot. The appearance of 1008 continues a recent trend of increasing new-cycle sunspot counts, which began in Oct. 2008. Solar activity is on the rise

Nov 12, 2008: New-cycle sunspot 1008 is growing rapidly. The sun is purple today because the picture was taken through a violet Calcium-K filter, which reveals bright magnetic froth around sunspots. Photo credit: David Leong of Hong Kong

See spaceweather.com for Wednesday, Nov 12, 2008:
http://www.spaceweather.com/
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More current images from NASA's SOHO, in higher electromagnetic frequencies:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime-images.html

Magnetogram (black and white areas denote regions of opposing magnetic polarity):
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_mag/512/