A revised collection of sunspot group numbers: from version 1.2 to 1.3 (synthesis of new changes)

J.M. Vaquero, M.C. Gallego, and V.M.S. Carrasco

Universidad de Extremadura

ISSI, Bern, August 2019

Main goals • Improve version 1.2 that was presented at the last

ISSI meeting (especially in the 17th and 18th centuries)

Main goals • Improve version 1.2 that was presented at the last

ISSI meeting (especially in the 17th and 18th centuries)

Muñoz-Jaramillo & Vaquero (2019)

Main goals • Improve version 1.2 that was presented at the last

ISSI meeting (especially in the 17th and 18th centuries)

• Improve version 1.2 that was presented at the last ISSI meeting (especially during transition periods and increasing the number of long series)

• Train our capabilities to improve the database in the future including:

• Number of individual spots • Sunspot positions (Butterfly diagram) • Sunspot area • Sunspot catalogs

Main achievements until now Observers: • Malapert and Derham • Smogulecz (groups and individual spots) • Tardé • Scheiner (and other observers) • Hevelius and Joanes Gallet • La Hire and his age • Gray, Manfredi, Rost, and Alischer • Horrebow (Copenhagen observers) • Oriani • Flaugergues and Wargentin • Hallaschka • Japanese observations • Derfflinger • Royal Observatory of the Spanish Navy • 20th Century observers

Main achievements until now Episodes: • 2nd Solar Cycle • Maunder minimum • 1710s • 1720s • Dalton minimum • “Archaeology” of Wolf series

The Future… “We are optimistic that the coming decade will see significant improvements in our assessment of long-term solar variability and its associated uncertainty. However, no amount of sophisticated algorithms will be a substitute for the identification and proper translation of historical documents, as well as for interdisciplinary teams involving astrophysicists, historians of science and philologists to revisit historical observations of sunspots” (Muñoz-Jaramillo and Vaquero, 2019)

The Future… “We are optimistic that the coming decade will see significant improvements in our assessment of long-term solar variability and its associated uncertainty. However, no amount of sophisticated algorithms will be a substitute for the identification and proper translation of historical documents, as well as for interdisciplinary teams involving astrophysicists, historians of science and philologists to revisit historical observations of sunspots” (Muñoz-Jaramillo and Vaquero, 2019) One proposal: submit a “note” to the Journal for the History of Astronomy (or other similar journal) explaining the importance of historical sunspot observations (including metadata) and encouraging to historians of astronomy to do this kind of research.

Antonio Colla (1806-1857) Parma (Italy) Detailed sunspot drawings (but we have located only 10). Chiara Bertolin and Fernando Domínguez-Castro

Announcement of the spots that the Sun will present this year… • Francisco Martínez de la Escalera • Support astronomer in the great Herschel

telescope in the Madrid Observatory • Almost 20 years of (lost) sunspot observations • Discoverer of a (unknonw) “celestial

phenomena” to predict sunspots (solar cycle?)

THE FIRST SUNSPOT

PREDICTION!!! 1818!!!

The Future… • We hope publish one article presenting the new version 1.3 of

the sunspot group database. Authors: Carrasco, Hayakawa + authors submitting data (Gallego, Arlt, Clette, …) + volunteers.

• Moreover, others complementary articles could be published at the same time or later.

• We should work on the construction of • (i) a list of active / inactive days, • (ii) a database of individual number of spots, and • (iii) "new" sunspot catalogs containing positions.

• Moreover, we strongly recommend sending copies of historical

documents on sunspot observations to HASO.

The Future…