Where have all the Sunspot numbers gone...long time passing...

[Dr. I]

So I see lots of sunspots, but no numbers, everyone on vacation??

[WildWill]

Where? Have you been looking to the sun without eye protection? That’s one way to always see sunspots!

Cheers!

WW

[3gMike]

42 minutes ago, Dr. I said:

So I see lots of sunspots, but no numbers, everyone on vacation??

SDO Data has been unavailable since 21st June. You can see current sunspots on the SWPC Synoptic Map.

[MinYoongi]

2 hours ago, 3gMike said:

SDO Data has been unavailable since 21st June. You can see current sunspots on the SWPC Synoptic Map.

Just came here to say that SDO is slowly becoming available ❤️ !!!

[Newbie]

Woohoo SDO is back! No more FOMO!

N

[Dr. I]

I can see clearly now, the rain has gone away!

Thanks for the scoup.

[Newbie]

1 hour ago, Dr. I said:

I can see clearly now, the rain has gone away!

Thanks for the scoup.

Everything will be up and running now but it's just a quiet time on the Sun. 

 N.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Newbie

[WildWill]

Yeah! It has returned an not spotless! (Double negative? No. But should I have said.. and has spots instead??)

Not quite completely quiet N, but I’m with you, I think we are due for a quiet spell… I wish I didn’t think so, but the last three months have been like clockwork. Roughly “lots of spots “ for 3 weeks-ish and then nearly spotless for a week-ish! Hmmm. 
 

isnt thatnwhat happened after 3014/3017 and before that, after 2993/4?  Not a lot of data… but,

Hypothesis: On a longitudinal region on the sun, roughly 90* wide does not produce sunspots… longitudinal region defined as area between two specified lines of longitude.  

I believe Newbie put forward this hypothesis or something perhaps similar or equivalent??

Now we just need some more observations and research and develop a hypothesis as to why this region is not creating sunspots (at least not at this time).

WW

from “musings of the mad physicist”

[WildWill]

On 6/27/2022 at 1:25 PM, Dr. I said:

So I see lots of sunspots, but no numbers, everyone on vacation??

Yesterday, in the morning (Texas Time!), I could see 3038. It was not quite as dark, had less contrast than the day before. It had bifurcated, and then a bit later, I saw a couple more little spots. Keep in mind, I am talking about visual observations, through my telescope n the back yard. 
Ashe from 3038, I couldn’t discern any other spots/groups at that time. So, from my observations the previous afternoon, I noticed growth and new spots. I tried a variety of filters and eyepieces, nothing really special, to find the “best” contrast. 3038, while growing in spots and size, it did seem more translucent, less opacity than the previous afternoon. The pics right now look pretty good, but I’m not set up…we have clouds for a few days…

WW

[Bry]

Is this the moon getting in between our satellite and the view of our sun?? -updated no more eclipse, nvm

Is that why SDO went out and its been so quiet.. hahah

awaiting that mysterious cme for tomorrow..

Edited June 29, 2022 by Bry

[Newbie]

2 hours ago, Bry said:

Is this the moon getting in between our satellite and the view of our sun?? -updated no more eclipse, nvm

Is that why SDO went out and its been so quiet.. hahah

awaiting that mysterious cme for tomorrow..

Hi Bry, not sure what you mean here, however the pic you posted is of the Sun taken in AIA 131. This being one of the channels used to detect solar flares. It measures temperatures in excess of 10,000ºK.

N.

[Sam Warfel]

8 hours ago, Bry said:

Is this the moon getting in between our satellite and the view of our sun?? -updated no more eclipse, nvm

Is that why SDO went out and its been so quiet.. hahah

awaiting that mysterious cme for tomorrow..

Yup, the moon did go in front of the sun as seen from SDO for a moment! However that has nothing to do with the recent outage, that was caused by a wildfire at Stanford where the images are processed. The lunar eclipse only lasted a very short time, as you saw. 

[Bry]

Thanks for finding the eclipse image again.. they are ephemeral!

I am aware, thanks to y’all, stanford had a fire and power outage, and that’s why sdo went out, I was making a bad joke blaming the moon..hence the “haha”..

22 hours ago, WildWill said:

Not quite completely quiet N, but I’m with you, I think we are due for a quiet spell… I wish I didn’t think so, but the last three months have been like clockwork. Roughly “lots of spots “ for 3 weeks-ish and then nearly spotless for a week-ish! Hmmm. 

 i do find it interesting there’s a lull in solar activity with the moon eclipsing at this time... seems to have a similar time frame as what wildwill is suggesting above: 3 weeks of sunspots, 1 week of lull .. maybe attributed to the moons tidal tug as it approaches then leaves being between us earth and sun for a week.

3gmike shared an awesome graph tracking the most active carrington longitudes based of sunspot formation/activity. (He found ~340 for northern hemisphere). I thought if there is one longitude that is most active then it might be due to our moon... but maybe now I see it’s the opposite after what wildwill has said about a lull for a quarter of the time.

Reason being, if we are second most influential planet gravitationally on the sun, and they both frequent around 28 days to rotate(sun) or orbit (moon). 

 

 

 

 

[3gMike]

48 minutes ago, Bry said:

i do find it interesting there’s a lull in solar activity with the moon eclipsing at this time... seems to have a similar time frame as what wildwill is suggesting above: 3 weeks of sunspots, 1 week of lull .. maybe attributed to the moons tidal tug as it approaches then leaves being between us earth and sun for a week.

Jan Alvestad at solen.info produces a graph showing an expanded view of sunspot number and 10.7cm flux. The date scale is a bit difficult to read but this still makes it clear that there is a (roughly) 28 day cycle in activity, perhaps slightly more pronounced over the last few months. As you have noted, this could link to rotation of the sun, or to the phase of the moon. Taking the last four peaks I came up with this relationship - you might come up with slightly different dates for the peaks.......

Peak 21/04 Full Moon 16/04, Peak 19/05 Full Moon 16/05, Peak 17/06 Full Moon 14/06, Peak 16/07 Full Moon 13/07

[Sam Warfel]

1 hour ago, Bry said:

I am aware, thanks to y’all, stanford had a fire and power outage, and that’s why sdo went out, I was making a bad joke blaming the moon..hence the “haha”..

Ah, my bad, sorry 

[Dr. I]

Hmmm, as we all know sunspots cause depressions in the solar surface with a rotation below. Magnetic pressures are always in flux. Seems to me that as sunspots build then in a sense burst, leading to and equilibrium state that is only supported for a brief amount of time, then solar pressures and magnetic flux lines build up once again. But who knows? 

[WildWill]

On 6/29/2022 at 3:57 AM, Newbie said:

Hi Bry, not sure what you mean here, however the pic you posted is of the Sun taken in AIA 131. This being one of the channels used to detect solar flares. It measures temperatures in excess of 10,000ºK.

N.

Hiya Newbie!

This one and 094 A are for studying solar flares, but 131 (13.1nm) looks at temperatures in excess of 10M*K and cooler plasma flows at around 400,000*K.

I think AIA 304 shows the lowest temperatures of all the instruments (except for 1600 and 1700). I think it allows you to see some features in the upper chromosphere and lower transition zone. I think it will show light regions/features at around 8-10,000*K… but don’t quote me on that.  
 

WW

[Newbie]

5 hours ago, WildWill said:

Hiya Newbie!

This one and 094 A are for studying solar flares, but 131 (13.1nm) looks at temperatures in excess of 10M*K and cooler plasma flows at around 400,000*K.

I think AIA 304 shows the lowest temperatures of all the instruments (except for 1600 and 1700). I think it allows you to see some features in the upper chromosphere and lower transition zone. I think it will show light regions/features at around 8-10,000*K… but don’t quote me on that.  
 

WW

Howdy WW,

oops my bad, I thought I wrote 10M Kº

Thanks for the correction, much appreciated. 

Newbie.

 

[hamateur 1953]

On 6/27/2022 at 7:03 PM, Dr. I said:

I can see clearly now, the rain has gone away!

Thanks for the scoup.

no more obstacles in my way……

[goldminor]

So what if this current peak turns out to be the high max for this solar cycle?

[Sam Warfel]

7 minutes ago, goldminor said:

So what if this current peak turns out to be the high max for this solar cycle?

It won’t. Solar cycles may peak or higher or lower depending on their strength, but they never peak 2 years early. Also, so far this SC has been outperforming the official prediction by a fair amount, so we can expect it to have a strong peak, or at least much stronger than any part of the SC we’ve seen so far. 

Activity comes and goes, quiet periods like we’ve had for a few weeks aren’t unusual, and they aren’t a sign of anything about the SC per se. We can just expect them to become less frequent as we move towards Solar Maximum in 2024/2025.  

By the way, this not the right place to post that, it’s unrelated. Next time start a new topic please