August came and went, but fortunately there was some solar activity worth observing. Mike Hill welcomes two new SID observers, both from France in his SID section and as always IÕd like to thank solar group members that took the time to send in some solar images as well as a little about themselves. This month IÕd like to highlight the observations of several European observers.

Gema Araujo, lives in the south of Spain and takes daily images and drawings of the sun using an 80mm f/11 refractor. She became interested in the sun while witnessing the August 1999 eclipse and began regular observations in 2000. The photo and drawing were both made on August 17, 2006 at her home. http://astrosurf.com/obsolar

Roberto Battaiola (A96) lives close to Milan and has been monitoring SID flares since 1999. This plot from August 21, 2006 shows multiple flares while monitoring station HWU at 18.3 kHz. He uses a Gyrator II from fellow SID observer Guglielmo Di Filippo (A93).

July was quiet again, but the big news was a very short lived active region detected on July 31 that showed an opposite polarity in the magnetic fields. Could this be the official start of solar cycle 24 ?? Hopefully we'll soon get some longer lasting spots that continue this characteristic and confirm the actual beginning of the new cycle. (Image courtesy SOHO/MDI)

I'd like to thank solar group members that took the time to send in some solar images as well as a little about themselves and their setups.

Bill Wilson (WILW) of Cordova, Tennessee, has been solar viewing with his Questar since 1979 and has been contributing his observatons to the AAVSO since 1980. Before retiring in 2004, Bill would often take his setup to work at the University of Tennessee to get observations during those shortened daylight months, and at the same time share views of the sun with coworkers. Upon his retirement a sundial was commissioned to be placed on the south side of the building. Bill also serves as a board member of the Memphis Astronomical Society.

John Blackwell (BLAJ) of Northwood, New Hampshire, took this H-alpha image on June 30, 2006 with a webcam connected to his 60mm Coronado scope. The image shows active region 0898.

Michael Hill, SID Analyst 114 Prospect St Marlborough, MA 01752 USA noatak@aol.com

The events listed above meet at least one of the following criteria

1. Event reported by two or more observers within +/- 5 minutes
2. Event matched to GOES-8 XRA event to within +/- 15 minutes and event time < 1000 UT
3. Reported by observer with a high quality rating > 8 (scale 1-10)

Solar Flare Summary Based on GOES-12 Data

Sunspot Data

American Relative Sunspot Numbers(Ra) for July 2006 [boldface = maximum, minimum] Day N Raw Mean Ra 1 42 33 25 2 32 28 19 3 35 25 18 4 37 26 18 5 33 32 22 6 37 33 23 7 35 36 25 8 41 32 23 9 32 27 20 10 29 15 11 11 32 13 9 12 30 7 5 13 35 3 2 14 32 11 8 15 37 15 10 16 39 19 13 17 40 21 15 18 32 20 15 19 38 20 14 20 33 7 5 21 31 1 1 22 31 13 8 23 33 18 13 24 38 18 13 25 39 19 13 26 31 17 12 27 33 17 12 28 30 15 11 29 33 16 12 30 33 25 19 31 31 20 15 Means 34.3 19.4 13.9 Total No. of Observers: 59 Total No. of Observations: 1064

July 2006 Sunspot Observers P. Abbott AAP 24 J. Alonso AJV 18 G. Araujo ARAG 30 H. Barnes BARH 14 R. Battaiola BATR 17 R. Berg BEB 12 J. Berdejo BERJ 6 J. Blackwell BLAJ 5 M. Boschat BMF 16 B. Branchett BRAB 30 M. Bradbury BRAM 7 R. Branch BRAR 27 R. Brown BROB 31 Y. Brovarets BYG 29 P. Campbell CAMP 6 G. Morales CHAG 31 B. Cudnik CKB 19 L. Corp CLZ 8 T. Compton COMT 18 T. Cragg CR 26 J. van Delft DEJV 19 G. Dyck DGP 5 J. Fernandez FERJ 22 T. Fleming FLET 31 K. Fujimori FUJK 18 M. Goetz GOEM 4 B. Halls HALB 22 K. Hay HAYK 13 S.Jenner JENS 6 J. Kaplan KAPJ 27 J.& S. Knight KNJS 23 L. Krozel KROL 1 J. Larriba LARJ 10 M. Lerman LERM 14 J. Maranon MARJ 31 L. McHenry MCHL 4 E. Mason MEU 5 M. Moeller MMI 30 S. Oatney OATS 30 IPS Observatory OBSO 12 R. Pektas PEKT 30 E. Richardson RICE 21 A. Ritchie RITA 23 G. Schott SCGL 31 D. Sharples SDP 1 C. Simpson SIMC 5 G. Stefanopoulis STEF 9 G. Stemmler STEM 25 N. Stoikidis STQ 28 M. Suzuki SUZM 19 M. Szulc SZUM 30 D. Teske TESD 28 J. Temprano TJV 15 P. Urbanski URBP 18 A. Vargas VARG 28 D. Vidican VIDD 13 D. Williams WILD 6 W. Wilson WILW 26 R. Wheeler WRP 7

Reporting addresses: Sunspot Reports Email: solar@aavso.org Postal Mail: AAVSO, 25 Birch St. Cambridge, MA, 02138 Fax: 617-354-0665 SID Flare Reports Email: noatak@aol.com Postal Mail: Mike Hill, 114 Prospect St., Marlboro, MA, 01752

Click image to enlarge. Fig. 1.10 cm Solar Flux and American Relative Sunspot Numbers (Ra) for July 2006 (10cm Source: http://www.drao.nrc.ca/icarus)

Click image to enlarge. Fig.2 Smoothed Mean Sunspot Numbers (Rsm) from January 2000 to January 2006 (Waldmeier method).