As Carl Feehrer mentioned in last month's Solar Bulletin, he is stepping down from his posts as Chair of the Solar Committee and as Sunspot Group Leader. He has held this position since 2000. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Carl for his great work in chairing the committee, working with the SID group lead and maintaining a strong relationship with all the contributing observers and the staff at AAVSO headquarters during his tenure. We look forward to his continued contributions of sunspot observations and his assistance through this transition.

I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself and the group leads so you'll know some of the names and faces involved behind the scenes.

Paul Mortfield — Solar Committee Chair
Paul began observing the sun since in his early teens when he made sunspot count observations, measured sunspot coordinates and got interested in solar radio observations. He's built several SID receivers and is an active observer with the designation code A108. While living in California he was involved with SOHO and Stanford University's Solar Observatory Group. Paul produced and hosted a variety of educational broadcasts about the sun for NASA-TV and is a contributing scientist for NASA's educational products review. For fun, his backyard observatory is used for research projects and astrophotography.

Mike Hill — Solar Flare/ SID Observing Group Leader
I have been observing the sun since I was 13 and it has held a special interest for me ever since. My interest turned to the sun-earth connection while taking a college course on environmental issues and I wrote a paper that was decidedly astronomically oriented. Later on I discovered the field of SID monitoring as a means of detecting solar flares and was hooked immediately. I built a Gyrator-II receiver and loop antenna and have been monitoring the sun electronically ever since. In March of 2000 I was asked by Janet Mattei of the AAVSO to take over as SID Analyst and willingly accepted the post. I monitor the sun every day for SIDs, check it on the weekend for sunspots and when possible look at it in H-Alpha with a homebuilt Prominence Scope.

Daniel Williams — Sunspot Group Leader Dan is the new sunspot group leader and lives in rural Nebraska with his wife, two young children, and dog named Spotty. He has a degree in Physics and works as an electrical engineer. His solar interest includes the astrophysics of our star, observing in white light and H-Alpha (hasn't strayed over to Calcium K, yet), and also enjoys double stars and open clusters. He can be reached at drwill@megavision.com

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 May 2006 [boldface = maximum, minimum] Day N Raw Mean Ra 1 28 58 40 2 26 51 36 3 33 50 35 4 31 53 38 5 31 40 28 6 34 38 27 7 33 49 36 8 35 44 32 9 30 39 27 10 34 29 21 11 30 19 13 12 31 14 9 13 25 8 5 14 31 1 1 15 34 2 1 16 30 0 0 17 26 0 0 18 23 4 3 19 28 14 9 20 27 28 20 21 30 31 22 22 33 42 28 23 34 39 28 24 33 39 27 25 37 36 26 26 23 47 32 27 27 44 31 28 40 54 38 29 34 51 36 30 38 44 31 31 34 32 20 Means 31.1 32.2 22.6 Total No. of Observers: 58 Total No. of Observations: 963

May 2006 Sunspot Observers 15 AAP P. Abbott 16 AJV J. Alonso 30 ARAG G. Araujo 1 ARE R. Allessi 7 BARH H. Barnes 7 BATR R. Battaiola 10 BEB R. Berg 8 BERJ J. Berdejo 5 BLAJ J. Blackwell 11 BMF M. Boschat 28 BRAB B. Branchett 25 BRAD D. Branchett 4 BRAM M. Bradbury 25 BRAR R. Branch 5 BROB R. Brown 27 BYG Y. Brovarets 31 CHAG G. Morales 30 CKB B. Cudnik 9 CLZ L. Corp 14 COMT T. Compton 20 DEJV J. van Delft 9 DGP G. Dyck 22 FERJ J. Fernandez 30 FLET T. Fleming 19 FUJK K. Fujimori 9 GOEM M. Goetz 11 HAYK K. Hay 13 JAMD D. James 26 KAPJ J. Kaplan 24 KNJS J.& S. Knight 2 KROL L. Krozel 10 LARJ J. Larriba 6 LERM M. Lerman 31 MARJ J. Maranon 17 MCE E. Mochizuki 11 MENM M. Menegotto 9 MMI M. Moeller 26 OATS S. Oatney 22 OBSO IPS Observatory 10 RICE E. Richardson 16 RITA A. Ritchie 26 SCGL G. Schott 2 SDP D. Sharples 14 SIMC C. Simpson 4 STEF G. Stefanopoulis 18 STEM G. Stemmler 27 STQ N. Stoikidis 19 SUZM M. Suzuki 28 SZUM M. Szulc 19 TAKH H.Takuma 28 TESD D.Teske 11 TJV J. Temprano 28 URBP P. Urbanski 22 VARG A. Vargas 5 WILD D. Williams 30 WILW W. Wilson 5 WRP R. Wheeler 26 YESH H. Yesilyaprak

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 May 2006 (10cm Source: http://www.drao.nrc.ca/icarus)

Click image to enlarge. Fig.2 Smoothed Mean Sunspot Numbers (Rsm) from January 2000 to November 2005 (Waldmeier method).