Solar and Aurora Activity Chat

[Weather-history]

Aberdeen last night.

 

I'm slightly surprised because look how dark it is. Where's the lingering twilight? Aberdeen area doesn't even reach astronomical twilight level at this time of the year.

[Stargazer]

I see what you mean but I'm guessing that may show how bright the display was there.

[Evening thunder]

I did wonder about that, looking for clues the tree at the bottom right is bare so perhaps an older photo (unless it's dead)? 

[Nouska]

I did wonder about that, looking for clues the tree at the bottom right is bare so perhaps an older photo (unless it's dead)? 

 

My earlier comment about the difference between day and night sky was expressing some scepticism about it being so cloud free, I hadn't even enlarged the pic. Good spot with the tree, everything a bit late up there but not quite that bad!

[Polar Maritime]

The photo is not mine so no idea about its detail.

[Summer of 95]

That's an old photo. The bright star at lower right is clearly Vega (it's blue, and the faint stars around it match the pattern of Lyra) and you can make out the top of Cygnus to the left of it. Those stars appear low in the north in the winter months; there's no way they could ever be seen there at night in June.

[Methuselah]

It's the Auroragate Scandal.

[Andy Pepler]

check out the 3 days forcast :O by jinkeys its gonna be a good one http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-3-day-forecast

[jonboy]

Are we about to see another controversial adjustment to historical data. 

 

SIDC are about to adjust the historical sunspot record and not everyone agrees  with the methods used. This from Geoff Sharp at 'The Laymans Sunspot Count'

 

'The SIDC (SILSO) would appear to have sold out if they take all the recomendations of the paper below. The SIDC are responsible for the long term sunspot record and now look to be changing this record based on one paper. The science is far from settled with opposing papers published, and it seems the gods at WUWT are fine with the changes?

While I agree the Waldmeier Factor (counting method that includes the weighting of sunspots resulting in at least 20% over counting since 1947) needs to be resolved and the evidence is very clear for the removal of this inflated counting method, the rest of the 103 pages in the paper are not convincing. Futhermore I challenge the reveiwing process of this paper that the SIDC is using.

http://www.leif.org/research/Revisiting-the-Sunspot-Number.pdf

The majority of the paper deals with need to review the 400 odd year SIDC (Wolf) sunspot record. But there is a section devoted to the current solar cycle 24:

In Fig.66

, we specifically compare the current cycle with weak cycles 5 and 6 belong-

ing to the Dalton minimum. The rise of cycle 24 is much steeper and even though it is still

unsure whether the maximum has actually been reached, the recent SN values clearly ex-

ceed the maxima of cycles 5 and 6. Considering now cycle 4 that preceded the onset of the

Dalton minimum, while cycle 23 had a similar amplitude, cycle 24 is again strikingly dif-

ferent. Therefore, the peculiar evolution of the current cycle does match the characteristics

of the Dalton minimum and cannot be interpreted either as heralding a subsequent extended minimum

They produce many graphs supporting their claim that SC24 is very different from SC5 but they use the SIDC SC24 count UNADJUSTED to support their claim? Here they claim that SC24 is the same as SC14, which is another attempt to remove the Landscheidt Minimum from the record. I wonder who could be pushing that barrow and I ask the question why there is at least no removal of the Waldmeier Factor (20%)??

If this is an example of the accuracy of the paper I suggest the SIDC take a longer harder look.

It will be interesting to see the new counting method going forward, there may be implications that affect the Layman's Sunspot Count.'

 

Link http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50

[Polar Maritime]

M7.9 Flare just..

[Paul Sherman]

Shot this on Monday 22nd at a Latitude of 42 Degrees North in NE Colorado - A wonderful display for over 90 minutes from a place on the same latitude as Southern Spain, helps with 5,000 ft of above sea level I guess.

 

 

Paul S

 

**Its not just Tornado Chasing we do whilst out in the US In Storm Season, A Solar Storm is also most welcome!

[jonboy]

Shot this on Monday 22nd at a Latitude of 42 Degrees North in NE Colorado - A wonderful display for over 90 minutes from a place on the same latitude as Southern Spain, helps with 5,000 ft of above sea level I guess.

 

IMG_2411.JPG

 

Paul S

 

**Its not just Tornado Chasing we do whilst out in the US In Storm Season, A Solar Storm is also most welcome!

 

What an added bonus that must have been. Fantastic picture

[Mapantz]

Shot this on Monday 22nd at a Latitude of 42 Degrees North in NE Colorado - A wonderful display for over 90 minutes from a place on the same latitude as Southern Spain, helps with 5,000 ft of above sea level I guess.

 

IMG_2411.JPG

 

Paul S

 

**Its not just Tornado Chasing we do whilst out in the US In Storm Season, A Solar Storm is also most welcome!

Lovely photo Paul! Is this a longer exposure shot?

[Paul Sherman]

Yep this was 25 Seconds at F3.5 With the ISO At 1600 which is all my rickety old Camera will allow me.

 

Others with newer cameras were down at F2.8 With 3200 ISO And much shorter intervals and much better pictures Lol

 

But the old 7 year old Canon that has taken 70,000 pictures still pulled it off........thankfully Phew

[Polar Maritime]

Sunspot count down to 28 today.

 

[karyo]

Sunspot count down to 28 today.

 

Nearly spotless once again!

[Polar Maritime]

GROWING QUIET: Solar activity has returned to low levels. Indeed, with no sunspots actively flaring, the sun's X-ray output is flatlining. NOAA forecasters estimate a 10% chance of M-class solar flares and a scant 1% chance of X-flareson June 30th. http://spaceweather.com/

[Polar Maritime]

The North is in for a good chance tonight.

 

[Polar Maritime]

On July 1st 2015, the World Data Center SILSO will lay an unprecedented milestone in the long history of the Sunspot Number. 

By its longevity, this reference sunspot record remains our unique direct reference retracing solar activity over more than 4 centuries and it is definitely the most widely used solar data set (more than 100 publications per year). However, this series was left unchanged since its creation by Rudolph Wolf in 1849, without any backward verification. The only innovation came in 1998 with the creation of a new similar sunspot index, the Group Number (Hoyt and Schatten 1998). However, the two parallel series showed strong differences hinting at strong inhomogeneities in either series or both. Since 2011, a group of 40 experts finally undertook a full revision of those two series in order to identify and fix the defects. This huge work was co-organized by E. Cliver (NSO, Sacramento Peak Observatory), F. Clette (WDC-SILSO, STCE) and L. Svalgaard (Stanford University) around four successive workshops (one of them held at the Royal Observatory in Brussels in 2012. 

  Now finally, all corrections have been finalized (for a recent synthesis, see Clette et al. 2014, Space Science Reviews). Over the last few months, all corrections obtained separately, often by different scientists, were finally assembled into a final end-to-end reconstruction of the Sunspot and Group Numbers. 

The figure below illustrates the change between the original and new Sunspot Number series. The most notable correction is a lowering by about 18% of all numbers after 1947, to remove the bias produced by a new counting method started in 1947 in Zürich. A large variable drift affecting the "Brussels-Locarno" Sunspot Number since 1981 has also been eliminated. 

Note that for the new Sunspot Number, the 0.6 conventional Zürich factor is not used anymore, which raises significantly the scale of the entire series. This simply reflects the choice of modern counts by A. Wolfer, Wolf's successor, as new reference. The new numbers thus now match much more closely the raw Wolf numbers obtained by all observers since 1993 until today. 

More here.. http://www.sidc.oma.be/press/01/welcome.html

[Polar Maritime]

A new model of the Sun’s solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun’s 11-year heartbeat. The model draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone. Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the ‘mini ice age’ that began in 1645. 

 

Looking ahead to the next solar cycles, the model predicts that the pair of waves become increasingly offset during Cycle 25, which peaks in 2022. During Cycle 26, which covers the decade from 2030-2040, the two waves will become exactly out of synch and this will cause a significant reduction in solar activity.

 

“In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other – peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun. Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other. We predict that this will lead to the properties of a ‘Maunder minimum’,†said Zharkova. “Effectively, when the waves are approximately in phase, they can show strong interaction, or resonance, and we have strong solar activity. When they are out of phase, we have solar minimums. When there is full phase separation, we have the conditions last seen during the Maunder minimum, 370 years ago.â€

 

More here; http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2680-irregular-heartbeat-of-the-sun-driven-by-double-dynamo

[Polar Maritime]

QUIET SUN: Solar activity remains very low. No sunspots are actively flaring and, as a result, the sun's X-ray output has flatlined... http://spaceweather.com/

 

[Polar Maritime]

FLATLINING: Solar activity is so low, the sun's X-ray output barely has a pulse. NOAA forecasters estimate a 10% chance of M-class solar flares and a miniscule 1% of X-flares on July 19th http://spaceweather.com/

[karyo]

Hardly any sunspots today and the solar flux has gone down to 91!

 

http://spaceweather.com/

 

Karyo

[Polar Maritime]

Yes Solar Flux has just about flat-lined..

 

  

[karyo]

Yes Solar Flux has just about flat-lined..

 

  

Down to 89 now which must be the lowest it's been since before this cycle's maximum!