OJBs Web Site: Observations

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Observation: Sunspots, January 1982

Title:	Sunspots
Date:	1982-01-31 NZDST
Time:	20.00 NZDST
Location:	Makarewa (near Invercargill), Southland
Equipment:	11 cm Newtonian

Description

Observed sunspot activity.
Estimated 70 spots seen (this is 1.5 years after solar maximum).
Some large complex groups all between ±45°.

Thoughts

The Sun is a useful object to study because you can observe it during the day, and its always bright enough to find easily! Of course, you have to be careful looking at it because its too bright to be viewed directly. For this diagram I used eyepiece projection, where the image is projected onto a white card about 30 cm from the eyepiece, I drew a small dot at the location of each spot and filled in the shape and size later while observing on a blank card.