Related papers: Vainu Bappu Memorial Lecture: What is a sunspot?

Early observations of sunspot were realised by the naked eye. Possible utilization of these records for studying the long-term change in the Sun is discussed here. Other historical sunspot observations with camera obscuras are also…

Although sunspots have been systematically observed on the Sun's surface over the last four centuries, their magnetic properties have been revealed and documented only since the early 1900s. Sunspots typically appear in pairs of opposite…

In 1844 Schwabe discovered that the number of sunspots increased and decreased over a period of about 11 years, that variation became known as the sunspot cycle. Almost eighty years later, Hale described the nature of the Sun's magnetic…

Sunspots are of basic interest in the study of the Sun. Their relevance ranges from them being an activity indicator of magnetic fields to being the place where coronal mass ejections and flares erupt. They are therefore also an important…

The Sun exhibits a well-observed modulation in the number of spots on its disk over a period of about 11 years. From the dawn of modern observational astronomy sunspots have presented a challenge to understanding -- their quasi-periodic…

Discovered in 1909 the Evershed effect represents strong mass outflows in sunspot penumbra, where the magnetic field of sunspots is filamentary and almost horizontal. These flows play important role in sunspots and have been studied in…

A long time-series of sunspot observations is preserved from Samuel Heinrich Schwabe who made notes and drawings of sunspots from 1825-1867. Schwabe's observing records are preserved in the manuscript archives of the Royal Astronomical…

The penumbra of a sunspot is a fascinating phenomenon featuring complex velocity and magnetic fields. It challenges both our understanding of radiative magneto-convection and our means to measure and derive the actual geometry of the…

Sunspots are a canonical marker of the Sun's internal magnetic field which flips polarity every ~22-years. The principal variation of sunspots, an ~11-year variation in number, modulates the amount of magnetic field that pierces the solar…

Observing and counting sunspots constitutes one of the longest-running scientific experiment, with first observations dating back to Galileo and the invention of the telescope around 1610. Today the sunspot number (SN) time series acts as a…

Sunspots are dark spots on the solar surface associated with strong magnetic fields. The number, area, and brightness of sunspots are supposed to reflect the intensity of the solar magnetic fields and are often used as proxies for their…

We study the visibility of sunspots and its influence on observed values of sunspot region parameters. We use Virtual Observatory tools provided by AstroGrid to analyse a sample of 6862 sunspot regions. By studying the distributions of…

It is generally believed that sunspots are the emergent part of magnetic flux tubes in the solar interior. These tubes are created at the base of the convection zone and rise to the surface due to their magnetic buoyancy. The motion of…

The number of spots on the surface of the Sun is one of the best tracers of solar variability we have. The sunspot number is not only known to change in phase with the 11-year solar cycles, but also to show variability on longer time…

Sunspots are areas of strong magnetic fields driven by a convective dynamo. Rudolf Wolf devised his Sunspot Number (SN) series to describe its variation with time. Most other solar phenomena vary in concert with SN, in particular the…

This article traces the birth and growth of solar physics at the Kodaikanal Observatory of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, India. A major discovery took place here in 1909 by John Evershed who detected radial outflow of…

We investigate sharply outlined features recorded in solar magnetic field tracers. It is shown that the magnetic boundaries of a sunspot do not coincide with the photometric ones. Moreover, there is no clear magnetic boundary around…

The importance of the periodicity in sunspot appearance was well recognized by the mid of 19th century. Several observatories around the globe have made the record of sunspots in the form of drawings and preserved them safely for posterity.…

Sunspot engravings and measurements in 1660-1676 are analyzed to retrieve sunspot area and heliocoordinates. Based on these data, we revise the Hoyt and Schatten (The role of the sun in climate change, 1997) hypothesis of long-lived…

Sunspot observations with telescopes in 18th century were carried out in Japan as well. One of these sunspot observations is recorded in an account called Sansaizusetsu narabini Kansei irai Jissoku Zusetsu (Charts of Three Worlds and…