Sunspot Cycle Dashboard

You can use the upper right graph to filter the other graphs if you want. Hover over the graph to find particular data points. Created the yellow and black for effect but I don't think I like it. Feel free to confirm.

Would prefer white background, with purple spikes....

I've heard recently (the past week or so) that the sun is going through the next stage, where the sunspot activity will drop (or even end).

Also heard that this is pretty normal for a star like the sun reaching middle age.

If I recall, when this happens, the temperature I believe will increase slightly.

Data takes precedence over aesthetics, imo.

will all the sea ice disappear before the next Gore speech now?

Forbes is where I read it.

An excerpt;

"“The Sun’s 11-year sunspot cycle is likely to disappear entirely, not just get less pronounced; [since] other stars with similar rotation rates show no sunspot cycles,” Travis Metcalfe, the paper’s lead author and an astronomer at the Space Science Institute in Boulder"

and

"The brightness of the Sun changes by about a tenth of one percent from minimum solar activity to maximum solar activity, says Metcalfe. And given current levels of heat trapped by manmade pollution, even if the Sun transitions permanently to a minimum state, he says, the cooling effect on Earth’s climate would still be negligible."

It was an interesting read...

There is a relationship between sunspot activity and solar irradiance, but it's not much of an influence at about 1.3 watts per square meter at max and min sunspot activity...

http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/earth/Earth8.pdf

It's interesting that both the 'Maunder Minimum' (1645 to 1715) and the low numbers of sunspots in the 1800s correspond to 'little ice ages'.

A lot of people are wondering if the low numbers of sunspots the sun is now experiencing is the signal for the start of a global cooling trend.

The picture below is what I mean by filtering the dashboard in case anyone was confused. I just held down control as I selected multiple bins on the upper right, that allowed me to just look at the last five decades :

Cool picture. Thanks, What focal length lens and what brand/model filter did you use?

My camera is a digital camera and the sensor is smaller than a 35mm film frame, so focal length is defined in terms of 35mm film camera equivalent.

The camera is a Canon SX50HS that zooms out to an equivalent of 1300 mm ref to 35mm (50X optical zoom) with an additional 4X digital zoom. The picture was at 50X optical zoom x 1.95 digital zoom, so about 100X or 2600 mm (35mm equivalent).

I have GIMP on my computer. GIMP is a free open source version of Photoshop. It's most useful function (for me) is the "Curves" function (under "Colors" menu) that allows you to define a transfer function between image pixel intensity to displayed pixel intensity. It's like brightness and contrast, only far more versatile.

As you can imagine, the dynamics range of the sun picture is very large. I used the "Curves" function to adjust the image to enhance the visibility of the sunspots.

Camera info:

https://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-Digital-Camera-2-8-Inch/dp/B009B0MZ1M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467306155&sr=8-1&keywords=canon+sx50+hs

The filter is a ND-100000 neutral density filter.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0068V23KA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

is this a stealth infomercial??

Cool, I think I will have to pick up one of those ND filters. Thanks!!

Has anyone done an FFT spectral analysis of the harmonics of that? I suspect there is a superposition of at least three major frequencies, with some sub-harmonics possible. Just a W.A.G.

Yup, it's been done...

http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/teachingwdata/examples/sunspots.html