solar observing

SID Database

About the SID Database

The Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance (SID) Database lists all events identified in the AAVSO Solar Bulletin. These results are provided monthly by the worldwide network of SID observers in the AAVSO Solar Division. Individual results are correlated with other observers' reports and reduced to a list of events with high definiteness ratings.

Solar Observing Guide in Italian

We now have available for download a translation of the AAVSO Solar Observing Guide into Italian - thanks to the excellent volunteer work of Raffaello Braga. This Guide is available free-of-charge and all solar observers are strongly encouraged to read it.

In addition to Italian, the Guide is available in English, French, German, Spanish (and soon Portuguese).

Solar Observing Guide in Spanish

Thanks to the excellent work of our own Sebastián Otero, we now have a Spanish translation of the AAVSO Solar Observing Guide available for download free-of-charge. In addition to Spanish, this Guide is also available in French and German (and soon Italian).

If you would like to translate the AAVSO Solar Observing Guide or any of the other AAVSO observing manuals or guides into your own native language, please contact AAVSO staff member Sara Beck.

AAVSO Solar Section Update for 2013

The AAVSO Solar Section has been actively improving its data collection and analysis methods over the past year.  We've gotten critically important feedback from the global solar research community on the importance of amateur observations of sunspots, and the AAVSO Solar Section is building new and stronger relationships with the professional community.  We've never been in a better position to support both the solar observers and the researchers that critically depend upon your data, and we're looking to make even more improvements in the near fut

SunEntry - A sunspot data entry program

SunEntry is a data entry program for solar observers. It will help you to create reports and send them to our database where they will be used in the AAVSO American Relative Sunspot Program. The information you submit will also be used in the monthly Solar Bulletin.

Getting Started

Before you can use SunEntry, you must have an AAVSO website account and an AAVSO Observer code if you don't already have both. Here are instructions on how to get them: