Monday, July 13, 2009

Finally, sunspots. The cycle begins,...or not.

Sunspots are important to some ham-radio operators. There are many or few sunspots depending on the state of the 11 year sunspot cycle. At least, thats what we all thought. For the last few years the sun was having a break and sunspots where not seen.
The sun stopped with her cycle at the lowest point and nothing could be done but wait in awe.

Finally after many spotless years the sun spotted again.

With all spots being near the equator, they must all be cycle 23 spots. A cycle 24 spot would be at a much higher latitude.
So are we seeing the old cycle(23) or the new one(24)?

Check out the sun real-time to find out if you can spot a sunspot.