[OKDXA] New Solar Cycle

[Coy Day]

Kim,

Okay, but is it really the start of a new solar cycle?  ;-)  We are still
skeptical.

Coy
-- 
Coy Day, N5OK
20685 SW 29
Union City, OK 73090
405-483-5632

Kim Elmore wrote:
> Having read in replies here that there is a fair
> bit of confusion about what this says, along with
> some derision about why it's written the way it is, I looked it all up.
>
> Concerning the terms used (nomenclature),
> remember that discussions like this are usually
> intended for an audience that's pretty familiar
> with some of the details of the subject matter,
> much like a meteorological discussion like might be found here
>
> http://www.crh.noaa.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=OUN&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1
>
> The discussion above is intended for other
> meteorologists, but is also made available to the
> general public as a matter of course. What you
> see reported by Dave (which came from
> spaceweather.com, but was created in Boulder at a
> solar forecast lab there. It is a discussion
> intended primarily for geophysicists and other
> solar physicists, so it uses the terms of their discipline.
>
> As for the terms used, here goes:
>
> At 09:25 AM 1/5/2008, you wrote:
>>Here's more info:
>>
>>Joint USAF/NOAA Report of Solar and Geophysical Activity
>>SDF Number 004 Issued at 2200Z on 04 Jan 2008
>>
>>IA.  Analysis of Solar Active Regions and Activity from  03/2100Z
>>to 04/2100Z:  Solar activity was very low.  Region 980 (S06E29)
>
> These numbers identify the active region (active
> regions include sunspots among other solar
> phenomenon) with respect to an arbitrary
> numbering system started 5 January 1972. Active
> region 10000 was recorded on 14 June 2002.
> Because of the formatting conventions of this
> numbering system, they can receive only four
> numbers. Hence, region 10000 was referred to as
> region 0000. Sometimes, the preceding zero in
> understood, so in the case above, what we really have is region 10980.
>
> However, we see only the regions on the side of
> the sun that faces us, and the sun rotates about
> once every 27 days (the equator rotates faster
> than the polar regions). Each region receives a
> number as it appears on the limb of the visible
> disc, so its possible that the same region may
> survive an entire rotation. However, because we
> cannot follow it all the way around, and because
> these things change fairly rapidly, there's no
> way of knowing that it's the same region. Hence
> it receives a new number. Very long-lived regions
> can receive several different numbers.
>
> The location given for the region (S06E29) gives
> its location on the visible disc using
> heliographic latitude and longitude. This is a
> coordinate system that applies only to the
> visible disc, not the entire sun, unlike terrestrial longitude and
> latitude.
>
> How heliocentric longitude and latitude are
> determined (it's not trivial) is explained here
> http://www.petermeadows.com/html/location.html.
>
>>produced one low level B-class flare during the past 24 hours.
>
> Solar flares are classified as A, B, C, M or X
> according to the peak flux (in watts per square
> meter, W/sq meter) of 100 to 800 picometer X-rays
> near Earth, as measured on the GOES spacecraft.
> Each class has a peak flux ten times greater than
> the preceding one, with X class flares having a
> peak flux of order 10-4 W/sq meter. Within a
> class there is a linear scale from 1 to 9, so an
> X2 flare is twice as powerful as an X1 flare, and
> is four times more powerful than an M5 flare.
> Hence, a B-class flare has a peak X-ray flux of about 10-7 W/sq meter.
>
>>   The
>>region continued to decay and is now classified as a simple Axx
>>sunspot group.
>
> This classification method (the McIntosh Sunspot
> Group Classification) uses one capital letter and
> two lower case letters. A means that it is a
> unipolar sunspot group (only one magnetic
> polarity), the first x means that the spot has no
> penumbra (a lighter region surrounding the
> darkest area, called the umbra), and the second x
> is simply a place filler. This is the simplest kind of sunspot.
>
>>New Region 981 (N30E22) is classified as a Cso beta
>>sunspot group.
>
> This group (full number is 10981) appears 30 deg
> North of the equator (N30E22) and 22 deg East of
> the central meridian. New sunspot groups usually appear at mid-latitudes.
>
> C - Bipolar group with penumbra on one end of
> group, usually surrounding largest of leading umbra
> s - Small, symmetric penumbra, elliptical or
> circular and N-S size smaller than 2.5°.
> o - open - few, if any, spots between leader and follower spots.
>
> Beta comes form the Mount Wilson observatory
> magnetic classification system and may be
> somewhat redundant here. Beta means a sunspot
> group having both positive and negative magnetic
> polarities, with a simple and distinct division between the polarities.
>
>>This region is likely a new solar cycle sunspot
>>group.  A very faint backsided CME
>
> CME refers to a coronal mass ejection. A CME is
> an ejection of material from the solar corona,
> usually observed with a white-light images of the
> solar coronal, called a coronagraph. "Backside"
> refers to the trailing region of the sunspot group
>
>>  was observed on LASCO C2 imagery
>>at 4/1454Z.
>
> LACO refers to the Large Angle and Spectrometric
> Coronagraph Experiment. The C2 refers to the C2
> coronagraph, which images the corona from about 1.5 to 6 solar radii.
>
> There!  Now you know something about how to interpret these discussions.
>
> 73,
>
> Kim Elmore (N5OP)
>
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