Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Astronomy

Formation of Sun Spot 1130

The latest sunspot (number 1130) formed suddenly over the past two days. The image at the right shows the two day period in time lapse. You can see the spot forming in the top hemisphere just above the solar equator. You can see the full sized video here.

This winter, according to several AGW skeptic blogs and websites, promises to be quite cold. Our experience in Southern California over the last fifteen days is reported to be the record coldest for this period – and it’s not even winter yet.

I guess the lackluster return of solar activity in the solar cycle has contributed to the cold weather. We have written several articles over the past few years that show how the Sun affects global climate. Two important ones are:

In the latter article, I listed some conclusions about the climate change scam:

  1. The media will print or broadcast sensationalized headlines to sell copy regardless of scientific value
  2. The media will print or broadcast manipulated science with half-truths and invalid conclusions to damage politicians with whom they do not agree
  3. Politicians seize on these unverified claims in order to blame their opponents
  4. Uneducated/uninformed people are as gullible as ever

Unfortunately, even after Climategate, these conclusions still are valid.

30 Nov 2010 by Astronomy Environment Global Warming Rocket Science

Dark Sky

nighttime1.jpgSeveral years ago, I visited Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, AZ. Some friends and I took the guided tour that brought us into several of the telescope domes on the mountain. One statement the tour guide made stuck in my memory. He said “We get more light pollution from Phoenix than we do from Tucson which is less than half the distance from the observatory.”

Tuscon, which is home to the main campus of the University of Arizona (go Wildcats). The University does a lot of optical and astronomical research and was a main influence on Tucson’s Dark Sky Ordinance. Most of the Phoenix Metro cities do not have a dark sky ordinance. We can stand in the 18 wheeler lot after nightfall at our Wickenburg hotel and see the glowing dome of light pollution to the southeast.

The Town of Wickenburg is considering a dark sky ordinance. The ordinance isn’t yet in effect, so we don’t have to comply when selecting our outdoor fixtures, but we want to be compliant. The image above shows the light pattern that our compliant fixtures will deliver – no upward light.

We have two telescopes – serious ones – 10″ and 90 cm catadioptrics, but we don’t use them much because of the terrible seeing in Southern California. We want to be able to take them out on clear Arizona nights and be able to see the planets, stars, galaxies and nebulae without competition from our own lights.

19 Nov 2010 by Arizona Astronomy Retirement

Solar Eclipse as Seen From SDO

sdo-transit.jpgAn Interesting eclipse occurred earlier this month when the moon passed between the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Sun. This is the first recorded lunar/solar eclipse taken by SDO although earth/solar eclipses happen often. SDO is like the Hubble Space Telescope but is totally devoted to solar activity.

The image at the right shows the partially-eclipsed solar disk (courtesy NASA – click to enlarge). I also uploaded a close-up image in which the mountains along the lunar limb can be discerned against the solar disc. This demonstrates the excellent resolution of the instruments aboard SDO.

The following is taken from the SDO website where you can download and watch a Quicktime video of the eclipse.

This was a first for SDO and it was visually engaging too. On October 7, 2010, SDO observed its first lunar transit when the new Moon passed directly between the spacecraft (in its geosynchronous orbit) and the Sun. With SDO watching the Sun in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light, the dark Moon created a partial eclipse of the Sun.

These images, while unusual and cool to see, have practical value to the SDO science team. Karel Schrijver of Lockheed-Martin’s Solar and Astrophysics Lab explains: “The very sharp edge of the lunar limb allows us to measure the in-orbit characteristics of the telescope e.g., light diffraction on optics and filter support grids. Once these are characterized, we can use that information to correct our data for instrumental effects and sharpen up the images to even more detail.”

18 Oct 2010 by Aerospace Astronomy Rocket Science

Solar “Conveyor Belt” Speeds Up

This is an interesting article on the SOHO website. The speeding of the internal plasma circulation is connected with the deepest solar minimum in a century.

solar conveyorOne of the outstanding questions facing solar physicists is the origin of the solar magnetic cycle: What drives the 11-year sunspot cycle? We have just passed an extended and deep minimum, unlike any in the past 100 years. The late onset of the new solar cycle (#24) and the unusually deep minimum between cycles 23 and 24 took all experts by surprise, which suggests that there is a fundamental lack in our understanding of the origin of the solar activity cycle.

Image: Artist’s concept of the Sun’s meridional circulation, a large scale flow that transports solar plasma from the equator to the poles and back like a giant conveyor belt. Credit: Science@NASA

The Sun’s meridional circulation is a massive flow pattern within the Sun that transports hot plasma near the surface from the solar equator to the poles and back to the equator in the deeper layers of the convection zone, similar to a “conveyor belt”. The flow is rather slow, with typical speeds of 10-15 m/s (20 to 30 mph). The structure and strength of this meridional flow is believed to play a key role in determining the strength of the Sun’s polar magnetic field, which in turn determines the strength of the sunspot cycles. One class of dynamo models predicts that a stronger meridional flow produces weaker polar fields, whereas another class of models predicts stronger polar fields (and a shorter sunspot cycle) for the same flow. [more]

08 Jul 2010 by Astronomy Environment Science

Fathers Day Flare

The new solar cycle antes up a massive CME for Fathers day. From SpaceWeather.com . . .

FATHER’S DAY BLAST: Consider it a Father’s Day gift … from the sun. This morning around 1 a.m. UT, magnetic fields on the sun’s eastern limb became unstable and erupted, producing one of the most spectacular explosions of the year. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the action:

The explosion did not cause a solar flare (a flash of electromagnetic radiation) but it did hurl a massive cloud of magnetized plasma into space. Because of the blast site’s location on the eastern limb, the cloud will not hit Earth. There won’t be any geomagnetic storms or auroras.

20 Jun 2010 by Aerospace Astronomy Science

STEREO Spacecraft Approaching Diametric Opposition

Why would that be significant? Well, it would allow for a full 4PI (360×360°) view of the sun. The animated movie of the sun on STEREO’s Website currently has a gap in the coverage of the sun. The spacecraft are in a heliocentric orbit drifting away from the Earth, one leading and one lagging. This diagram shows the current position of spacecraft A (ahead) and B (behind). The scale is in astronomical units, the average distance between the earth and sun.

Sun-monitoring instrumentation on spacecraft like SOHO and STEREO have gone a long way in discovering what makes the sun behave in mysterious ways. Also, the data coming back (when not intentionally distorted by the IPCC, the CRU or NASA’s James Hansen) can be used to chart the relationship between solar activity and global climate.

stereo.jpg

16 Jun 2010 by Aerospace Astronomy Global Warming Science

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