Solar and Aurora Activity Chat

[SteveB]

Sun has gone spotless again

http://spaceweather.com/

Solar flux down to 74

http://www.solarham.net/

[SteveB]

2 day's spotless, solar flux is at 72

17 day's spotless for the year

http://spaceweather.com/

http://www.solarham.net/

[weirpig]

3 hours ago, SteveB said:

2 day's spotless, solar flux is at 72

17 day's spotless for the year

http://spaceweather.com/

http://www.solarham.net/

Yep  i wonder if we can get close to the 2o10  total?

[summer blizzard]

Am i right in thinking that all these spotless days have occurred since May?

[weirpig]

27 minutes ago, summer blizzard said:

Am i right in thinking that all these spotless days have occurred since May?

I believe the first day was june the 4th this year  

Probably been posted before but here is a list of years and sunspots

Sun-spotless days since solar maximum began, 2009:
2016 total: 16 days (8%) 
2015 total: 0 days (0%)
2014 total: 1 day (<1%)
2013 total: 0 days (0%)
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)

Edited July 28, 2016 by weirpig

[summer blizzard]

26 minutes ago, weirpig said:

I believe the first day was june the 4th this year  

Probably been posted before but here is a list of years and sunspots

Sun-spotless days since solar maximum began, 2009:
2016 total: 16 days (8%) 
2015 total: 0 days (0%)
2014 total: 1 day (<1%)
2013 total: 0 days (0%)
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)

Do you have the years going into the last solar minimum. 

We could just be in a patch however it would be nice to think that we could start to pile up 20 per every two months. 

Amazing how different the winters of 2013 and 2014 were.

[weirpig]

6 minutes ago, summer blizzard said:

Do you have the years going into the last solar minimum. 

We could just be in a patch however it would be nice to think that we could start to pile up 20 per every two months. 

Amazing how different the winters of 2013 and 2014 were.

here is the cycle from 1996  as you can see he max never really got going

 

 

Edited July 28, 2016 by weirpig

[Yarmy]

3 hours ago, summer blizzard said:

Do you have the years going into the last solar minimum. 

We could just be in a patch however it would be nice to think that we could start to pile up 20 per every two months. 

Amazing how different the winters of 2013 and 2014 were.

You can get them from the Daily Sunspot CSV link on here:

http://sidc.oma.be/silso/datafiles

They are the EISN counts rather than the NOAA, but they won't be all that different.

This is another useful resource:

http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html

 

 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2016 by Yarmy

[jonboy]

What is interesting is how quick we seem to be heading towards minimum which would suggest a longer than normal minimum which is likely to be deep. I would not be surprised to see us easily surpass the 51 of 2010 and easily surpass the 260 of 2009 in 2017 I equally  think 2018 will be in the 200's as well. we are now on 18 days for 2016

[weirpig]

Just a quick question  i understand that in 2010 we had a lot less spotless days than now however, do we know how many sunspots there were over the course of 2010?  because looking at some data  i believe we are now in the quietist periods including 2010

[Yarmy]

25 minutes ago, weirpig said:

Just a quick question  i understand that in 2010 we had a lot less spotless days than now however, do we know how many sunspots there were over the course of 2010?  because looking at some data  i believe we are now in the quietist periods including 2010

There were 51 spotless days in 2010 (using the NOAA count).

[weirpig]

46 minutes ago, Yarmy said:

There were 51 spotless days in 2010 (using the NOAA count).

Hi Yarmy  but do we know  out of the days that had sunspots  how many were there?   ie  was there 10 sunspots in a day 

[Yarmy]

2 minutes ago, weirpig said:

Hi Yarmy  but do we know  out of the days that had sunspots  how many were there?   ie  was there 10 sunspots in a day 

You can get the daily count here (back to 1818!):

http://sidc.oma.be/silso/DATA/SN_d_tot_V2.0.txt

4th column is the daily count.

[weirpig]

5 minutes ago, Yarmy said:

You can get the daily count here (back to 1818!):

http://sidc.oma.be/silso/DATA/SN_d_tot_V2.0.txt

4th column is the daily count.

Thanks  Yarmy,

 

I see we  in regards to sunspots were are certainly alot more quieter than last  year .  infact it looks like its the quietest period since 2010   

[weirpig]

Note the similarity of the current Solar Cycle 24 to Solar Cycle 5 which is associated with the Dalton Minimum. It maybe a little too early to compare similarities with Solar Cycles 5 and 6, leading the planet into another mini ice age, like that during the Dalton Minimum.  Or whether this minimum will combine with a lower Solar Cycle 25 which could  lead to a 30-year cooling period producing another Little Ice Age, like that during the Maunder Minimum.  We will just have to wait and watch the climate evolve as the sunspots decline.

 it does show this cycle  is indeed very low

Edited August 3, 2016 by weirpig

[Polar Maritime]

Kp5 Storm tonight.

[drgl]

Yesterday a spot so small it could hardly be seen was counted, now SDO is malfunctioning and alternative images are being used we are at zero again!

[weirpig]

14 minutes ago, drgl said:

Yesterday a spot so small it could hardly be seen was counted, now SDO is malfunctioning and alternative images are being used we are at zero again!

Down to 19 days without sunspots this year.  Considering the first spotless day was recorded until June  the sun is in a very unactive cycle.

[sundog]

Today should make it 20 spotless days now this yr-all since the start of the summer.

[Yarmy]

1 hour ago, sundog said:

Today should make it 20 spotless days now this yr-all since the start of the summer.

SDO is functioning again and there are a couple of visible regions:

 

[karyo]

On 8/3/2016 at 12:56, weirpig said:

Note the similarity of the current Solar Cycle 24 to Solar Cycle 5 which is associated with the Dalton Minimum. It maybe a little too early to compare similarities with Solar Cycles 5 and 6, leading the planet into another mini ice age, like that during the Dalton Minimum.  Or whether this minimum will combine with a lower Solar Cycle 25 which could  lead to a 30-year cooling period producing another Little Ice Age, like that during the Maunder Minimum.  We will just have to wait and watch the climate evolve as the sunspots decline.

 it does show this cycle  is indeed very low

From what I can see, this cycle has much exceeded the peak of cycle 5. However, the really interesting bit is that it has somehow managed to drop sharply this year to the levels that cycle 5 had at this stage if not slightly below.

[Yarmy]

3 minutes ago, karyo said:

From what I can see, this cycle has much exceeded the peak of cycle 5. However, the really interesting bit is that it has somehow managed to drop sharply this year to the levels that cycle 5 had at this stage if not slightly below.

Those early cycles really should have error bars because there is huge uncertainty; careful daily observation didn't get going until the mid-19th century. You can't really compare them with recent cycles, although you can say SC5 was certainly weak.

[karyo]

11 minutes ago, Yarmy said:

Those early cycles really should have error bars because there is huge uncertainty; careful daily observation didn't get going until the mid-19th century. You can't really compare them with recent cycles, although you can say SC5 was certainly weak.

Yes, agreed! I bet they could not see/count the tiny sunspots then so it could be that this cycle is just as quiet as cycle 5.

[Gael_Force]

48 minutes ago, karyo said:

Yes, agreed! I bet they could not see/count the tiny sunspots then so it could be that this cycle is just as quiet as cycle 5.

Is it not more the case that a spot which would have been counted as one back then is now looked at in fine detail and is actually a cluster which is counted as a number of little specks rather than one bigger spot.

[Polar Maritime]

Some faint sightings in Northern Scotland last night.

PERSEID METEOR & GOLD AURORA
02:30 BST : The clouds parted and I was lucky enough to capture this massive meteor streaking past Ursa Major while the gold aurora was still going strong. If you squint you can make out faint rays and pink ray tops in the aurora. @ ISO 6400 F2.8 10s.

 

Edited August 6, 2016 by Polar Maritime