SUNSPOT 1025

spaceweather.com ^ | 9/1/2009 | Staff

[PreciousLiberty]

SUNSPOT 1025: A new sunspot emerged yesterday and interrupted a 51-day string of blank suns. It wasn't much of an interruption. Sunspot 1025 is small and may already be fading away.

[PreciousLiberty]

SIDC (official keeper of the International Sunspot Number) has its data out for August, and it doesn't show a spot for 8/31. That would leave the entire month of August without a sunspot.

http://sidc.oma.be/

Remember, we will only know Cycle 24 is really underway once the daily sunspot number average climbs above 25 or so. The ramp up in sunspot activity is usually quite rapid. The end to the minimum has been called mathematically, but unless solar activity actually picks up it means nothing.

The current image at Culgoora shows the sunspot was extremely fleeting. I'd like to see an image of it at its peak in white light. The other interesting note is that it was at quite a low latitude for a Cycle 24 spot, and it's not the first one like that. Another sign of an unusual solar cycle?

This type of image is similar to what Galileo and others observed in the 1600s, except of course their instruments were relatively crude and not as capable of resolving fine detail. The images from SOHO, computer enhancement and all, are another matter. Also don't forget that the medieval observers only observed during the European day, not all 24 hours...

Keep those things in mind when comparing this cycle to the Maunder Minimum records...

[decimon]

“Shane, come back!”

[11th Commandment]

This is a serious problem. Because of Man Made solar panels, we are using too much of the sun's energy and sunspots are disappearing. We need to stop the growth of solar power companies, but it may already be too late.

Please, Please put your Panels away!

[PreciousLiberty]

By the way, this sunspot very conveniently "appeared" (if not according to SIDC) very shortly before the record for "no sunspot days" was broken for the entire minimum.

The hologram of the back of the Sun shows a possible sunspot, so perhaps that will truly break the streak.

[ConservativeMan55]

Ping!

[ßuddaßudd]

LOL
Thanks for the chuckle..... ▲

[Danae]

Well, this one is really small, and from the site, may be fading already.

Just as with the few others this year, I don’t think that this indicates the bottom. Certainly Solar Astronomers are not unanimous in their predictions....

[PapaBear3625]

Back in May, the NASA prediction was that Cycle 24 would be well under way by now. If reality matched their curve, we should have been at a sunspot level of 10-15 by now.

[PreciousLiberty]

I did find a better image, from yesterday. This is the GONG continuum image.

Note that the link is to the "current" image, which happens to be the right one now. I have it archived locally, but I'm too lazy to post a copy somewhere..so it'll change. heh

At any rate, note the low contrast of the spots with the background. I believe this is consistent with the onset of the "Sunspots May Disappear by 2015" paper. It also makes me think that early astronomers might easily have missed these.

[Quix]

Thx. Will check it out.

[Rebelbase]

I saw several sunspots in that image. They went away after I cleaned my screen.

[PreciousLiberty]

Whoops, the 8/31 image rolled off already. Well, those that saw that one can now see the ex-spot. ;-)

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !