WARNING! The Sun is extremely dangerous. Looking at it
with any sort of optical aid will result in instant blindness.
Look here to
see how I do it.
The number and size of sunspots are continuing to increase as the Sun continues to move towards the maximum in solar activity which is now expected to peak later this year. As yet, however, the activity is nothing like it was back in 2003.
The thumbnails below will take you to a page of pictures taken on the date given. On those pages moving your mouse pointer over the picture of the full Sun will show you the number designations of the spots.
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Sunspot Designations |
Sunspots and Active Regions are numbered by the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and started on 5th January 1972. These numbers now exceed 10000 but often the first or the first two digits are omitted. The designations of current sunspots can be found on the SOHO site. A most useful archive of diagrams of the Sun showing the positions and designations of sunspots on a daily basis right back to January 1992 is available from The Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii. This link will take you to their current page from where you can access their archives, select a given image by date or browse by month. I find this particularly useful if I have imaged an interesting spot after some days of cloud, and I can look back and see when the spot appeared. |
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We have had another unusual spring and summer with much more cloud than normal. This combined with my being very busy with other matters has resulted in my neglecting the Sun so far this year. However the activity is building, so a few sunspots are appearing. |