Solar Cycle 24 Main Discussion X

[af4ex]

... just noticed that this 0530Z to 0630Z outage has occurred every day since 1 Mar! (and another missed event today) What's going on?

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[arjan]

The explanation can be found under the one min xray graph.

During the spring and fall, GOES satellites experience eclipses in which the Earth or moon blocks the X-ray instrument view to the sun for a short period every day. Eclipse season lasts for about 45 to 60 days and ranges from minutes to just over an hour. At these times there is a gap in the XRS signal shown.

[af4ex]

Mar 26, 2011 13:28:42 GMT arjan said:

The explanation can be found under the one min xray graph.

During the spring and fall, GOES satellites experience eclipses in which the Earth or moon blocks the X-ray instrument view to the sun for a short period every day. Eclipse season lasts for about 45 to 60 days and ranges from minutes to just over an hour. At these times there is a gap in the XRS signal shown.

Ok, I found the blurb, thanks!
www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/xray_1m.html

You can see the geostationary GOES orbit on page 28 of this document (the official presskit):
www.nasa.gov/pdf/428782main_Goes-P-PK-Color.pdf

It's strange that they don't report the eclipse as an 'event' in the archived event reports, so that researchers can be aware of possible missed events.

They have a symbol ('////') for 'missing data' (below), which they use often. I would think it would apply to data lost by 'eclipse' too.

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[THEO BAKALEXIS]

Region 11176 is very large and have to much power.

We have four other regions except 11176.

All have sunspots.

www.solar-007.eu/site/

[af4ex]

@me
> ... It's strange that they don't report the eclipse as an 'event' in the
> archived event reports, ...

Oops, NOAA _did_ report the 25 March eclipse. I was looking at the wrong day. It's clearly marked in the 25-March event log. Mea Culpa.

Of course, missing an M-flare is not really such a big deal, when you consider that almost all of the flares on the far side go unreported (except those occasional blockbusters near the limbs)

[edit: yeah, I know they should have reported an eclipse for 26-March too, since another big flare event was missed. But they have until the end of the day to fix the log entries]
:-|

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[THEO BAKALEXIS]

Seeing with mist today and now photos........

but i see a fantastic phainomenon inside reversed region 11176.

So take my DMK and capture this very beautifull shape.

The sunspots together with the filaments gave.....

A SMALL LION REST INSIDE THE REGION 11176

Look at this

[krp]

That's cool Theo.

Anybody know why the sun has been so quiet the past few days? There's 6 sunspots and a good chance for strong flares according to noaa. But there's nothing but weak flares.

[af4ex]

Mar 27, 2011 22:40:12 GMT krp said:

That's cool Theo.

Anybody know why the sun has been so quiet the past few days? There's 6 sunspots and a good chance for strong flares according to noaa. But there's nothing but weak flares.

The x-ray background is at B-level, but not fluctuating much, giving the appearance of nothing happening. But that's moderately high.

X-ray flares aren't the only indicator of solar activity. The 10.7cm radio flux ("SFI") is probably the best (next to sunspot count) and has been very high the past few days:

Penticton Solar Flux Index (1700Z 2000Z 2300Z)
2011 Mar 21 2800 106 101 100
2011 Mar 22 2800 101 100 105
2011 Mar 23 2800 103 105 103
2011 Mar 24 2800 108 108 107
2011 Mar 25 2800 114 113 126
2011 Mar 26 2800 113 115 114
2011 Mar 27 2800 --- 117 ---

This effect of this high actiivty can already been seen here on Earth. HF propagation has increased. American and Japanese hams are talking right now on 21 MHz ("15 meters"). Openings like this have been rare in these days of reduced solar activity:

www.dxsummit.fi/CustomFilter.aspx?customCount=50&customRange=21

WO1N 21377.5 KL7RA 2350 27 Mar Alaska
K3ATO 21360.8 KL7SB 2350 27 Mar Alaska
N3XRU 21241.0 VY1EI 2350 27 Mar Canada
WA7SHP 21417.8 JA6GCE 2350 27 Mar Japan
W3LJ 21252.5 KG7C 2349 27 Mar United States
SK2T 21308.3 KY7M 2349 27 Mar United States
N6RO 21272.6 6V7D 2349 27 Mar Senegal
WA1FCN 21318.0 9M8Z lonely 2349 27 Mar East Malaysia
K7GSE 21321.9 JE7YSS 2349 27 Mar Japan
W4ELS 21293.3 JS3CTQ 2349 27 Mar Japan
KB0MHH 21420.5 NX0X 2349 27 Mar United States
WO1N 21371.0 JA6BZI 2349 27 Mar Japan
NI1N 21220.8 JR1HUA 2348 27 Mar Japan
DS2XUM 21386.5 WK5T cq test 2348 27 Mar United States
K3ATO 21327.6 LP1H 2348 27 Mar Argentina
WB2ABD-@ 21266.3 KH6/AI5P 2348 27 Mar Hawaii
K3OO 21240.4 BY5CD 2347 27 Mar China
AF7Z 21299.0 DZ1B 2347 27 Mar Philippines
K3ATO 21316.5 XR6T 2347 27 Mar Chile
NA2U 21230.6 K9CT 2347 27 Mar United States
VK4DEP 21428.2 VK6IR wpx 2347 27 Mar Australia
K3ATO 21309.0 N7MZW 2346 27 Mar United States
WO1N 21355.0 KP4WW 2345 27 Mar Puerto Rico
K5JTH 21278.5 WX3B 2345 27 Mar United States
K3OO 21217.6 N3RD 2345 27 Mar United States
K3ATO 21305.5 P40L 2345 27 Mar Aruba
SK2T 21385.4 AE6YB 2344 27 Mar United States
WA7SHP 21321.9 JE7YSS 2343 27 Mar Japan
W4SO 21237.9 VY1EI 2343 27 Mar Canada
AF7Z 21219.0 PV2P 2343 27 Mar Brazil
N6RO 21402.0 LU5EVK 2343 27 Mar Argentina
W6KY 21440.2 VE6TL 2342 27 Mar Canada
N3ZC-@ 21448.5 JO3DDD Loud in MD-Tnx 2342 27 Mar Japan
WP4NIX 21343.0 V3M WPX 2342 27 Mar Belize
W6KY 21429.2 JA2BNN 2342 27 Mar Japan

[krp]

I don't really know much about ham radio. I want to see high solar activity so hopefully I can see the aurora borealis down here in northern Illinois.

[af4ex]

Mar 28, 2011 1:28:28 GMT krp said:

I don't really know much about ham radio. I want to see high solar activity so hopefully I can see the aurora borealis down here in northern Illinois.

Need a big CME for that to happen. Not all flares produce CMEs. Just the ones that have enough filament material suspended above them to be ejected. And then it needs to be aimed at the Earth.

Get your latest aurora forecasts for Alaska and Northern Hemisphere here:
www.pfrr.alaska.edu/aurora/index.html

[gauss]

I would say the lion looks like a wolf..

Thanks for the observation!

And it reminds me of the "wolf age" in Eddan - the ancient Nordic religion where finally the wolf will eat the sun:


45. Brothers may fight
and fell each other,
may sisters' sons
kinship stain;
hard is in the home,
sleeperdom severe;
axe-age, sword-age,
shields cloven,
wind-age, wolf-age,
ere the world falls;
no men will
each other spare.

________________________________________

The story in the Nordic prophecy is that the wolf will finally eat or "swallow" the sun and the sun will then no longer heat the earth and the earth will first have 3 years of "wolf-age"(wars and misery everywhere) followed by 3 years of "eternal winter" called "Fimbul-winter".

Then Ragnarok will start with a boom and the earth will be on fire, so the prophecy goes. If we match this with the Nostradamus prophecy dates that means in 2016 the Fimbul winter will start and the wolf age is then due in 2013...

Some interesting times ahead..



PS: I have read from some so called "experts" the Milky way has overheated like never before lately and that heat is bound to get here some day some say... I have no proper information about this however but I am very interested in such matters..

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4278005.stm

[af4ex]

gauss
> ... the Milky way has overheated like never before lately and that heat
> is bound to get here some day some say...

Heat is electromagnetic radiation and so travels at the speed of light. Since the Milky Way is 100,000 light years in diameter that might take a while.

While you're waiting, write up a screenplay about it. Sounds like a nice plot for a Hollywood blockbuster movie. ;D

Welcome to Solar Cycle 24!

[gauss]

Thanks, since we live inside the Milky Way I had more this phrase in mind about the Milky Way(in fact such a blast can happen at any time "near" to us as he says):

"The blast occurred on the surface of an exotic kind of star - a super-magnetic neutron star called SGR 1806-20.

If the explosion had been within just 10 light-years, Earth could have suffered a mass extinction, it is said. "

It seems like SC 24 will give us a good show ahead, or rather the lack of show causing a big show down here..

[af4ex]

gauss
> ...blast occurred on the surface of an exotic kind of star -
> a super-magnetic neutron star called SGR 1806-20

SGR 1806-20 is a soft gamma ray repeater, located in our Milky Way galaxy, which emitted one of the most powerful soft gamma bursts ever recorded in 2004.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_gamma_repeaters

SGR's are a special, milder kind of gamma ray burst (GRB). GRB's are even more powerful and are observed in distant galaxies. The gamma rays from these GRBs are more energetic (i.e. shorter wavelength) and could wipe out life on earth if the GRB beams were directed from within 1000 light years of earth.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst

The most powerful GRB recorded, the "Clarke GRB" (so named because is happened a few hours after the death of Arthur C. Clarke in 2008) emitted light visible to the naked eye, even though it was 7.5 billion light years away from earth! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRB_080319B

There's a group of amateur astronomer observers who look for gamma ray bursts, some using VLF radio receivers, which measure the ionospheric perturbations ('sudden ionospheric disturbances' -> SIDs) caused by these events.
science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast21apr_1m/

These solar flares that we've been observing for SC24 are toy sparklers in comparison to these giant gamma ray explosions.

:-|

[gauss]

Thanks, very interesting information, really makes me think..