after hitting a minimum between solar cycles and a zero sunspot count for a brief period, Cycle 24 appears to have started
From Soho
Soho magnetogram - 24 Sep 2008
Nice big spot on upper right
compare with 4 days ago...
Here is the current magnetogram movie - it is very interesting, shows the spot emerging into the photosphere a couple of days ago, it does not rotate into view (caveat: dynamic page, view only good this week).
Cool.
This is the movie archive - look at Sep 20-24
NASA is so excited they put out a press release
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Now do we have our spots back?
With bonus pretty pictures.
You'd think after my last debacle of prematurely pronouncing the reappearance of sunspots I'd have learned...
but, is it, could it be...?
click to embiggen
looks like a small complex of spots in the upper left quadrant...
there are…
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we've been kinda low on sunspots for a while as we hit the inter-cycle low;
however, I heard rumours from Iceland that Aurora Borealis had been seen, so I scooted over to Soho to look see
UPDATE: nope, still no sunspots
Couple of nice spot complexes in the upper left.
Haven't checked the polarity…
Ok, time to set up my solar scope and observe this weekend...
I thought it was claimed the cycle was beginning, back in January, but then the sun began its spotless period. So is this the real thing, or just another false start? Supposedly the solar wind is currently at a fifty year low. If this is really the beginning of the active cycle, those people wanting to get whatever data they can at very low wind strength had better get crackin.
yeah, there was a little spot earlier which faked people out that the cycle might be starting
the report says this one show polarity reversal but we won't really know if the normal cycle is ramping up again on schedule until we have enough spots for statistics, say more than 10
Magnetar?