Observation of sunspots

In the second half of 2020, we launched a new specialist program dedicated to observing and plotting sunspots. Sunspots are a manifestation of the solar activity, and their number and position on the solar surface keeps changing over the course of the eleven-year solar cycle and as a result of the rotation of the Sun.

We observe the Sun with an 18 cm lens telescope in the northwest dome of the Teplice observatory using a projection eyepiece. The solar disk is displayed on a screen behind the telescope, which is attached to the telescope tube. We draw the sun in logs with a diameter of 25 cm, in which the position of the spots, the cardinal points, the position of the rotation axis of the sun and other data necessary for the evaluation of the solar activity at the moment of observation are recorded.

In 2020, 21 sunspot maps were taken and were evaluated using standard methodology. During the observation, we cooperated with the Solar Department of the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Ondřejov.

In 2021, every clear day, our staff mapped the solar photosphere and evaluated sunspot counts and faculal fields. A total of 167 drawings were made. This activity took place in cooperation with the Solar Department of the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Ondřejov and the František Pešta Observatory in Sezimovo Ústí, and the results are published and included in the international statistics of solar activity.