Space Weather Monitors SID Users Manual - Stanford Solar Center ...

Space Weather Monitors SID Manual
Reg #: This column tells you which active region (sunspot number) of the Sun produced the
event.
If the GOES catalog indicates a flare at the time your graph shows a spike, you have most
likely detected a flare!
Sometimes SID monitors pick up flares that do not appear in the GOES catalog. Then you have
found an “undocumented” flare! It doesn’t appear on the charts because the charts are reduced
from data by humans, who sometimes make mistakes. We are looking into the possibility of
having flares detected by students be incorporated into the general GOES catalogs.
Remember that the GOES satellites are detecting solar flares as they are emitted from the Sun.
Your SID monitor is detecting changes to the Earth’s ionosphere caused by those same flares. So
while your monitor and the satellites are tracking different effects, they are based on the same
phenomena.
Active Region numbers: Viewing the regions of the Sun on-line
Active regions are places on the visible surface of the Sun containing strong magnetic fields in
complex configurations. They are often associated with a particular sunspot and in constant
change and flux. These active regions are usually the source of the solar flares you have detected.
Active regions are given consecutive numbers as they appear on the disk. If you have detected a
flare and want to know where on the Sun it came from, look at REG# in the GOES catalog
listing. To see the region numbers identified, go to:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/ and hit “Sunspots” in the upper right corner
The current day’s solar active regions will always be shown there. If you need to check for
previous days’ images, hit the “List of all available daily images” on that same page.
The images of active regions come from the great Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO),
50