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Improvements for the AAVSO Sunspot Number

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Bradley E. Schaefer

Physics Deparment, JWG 463

Yale University

New Haven, CT 06520-8121

Presented at the 85th AAVSO Annual Meeting, November 2, 1996

Abstract

The AAVSO sunspot number has served as a measure of solar activity on a time scale of decades. Nevertheless, this paper presents four ways in which the current AAVSO handling of sunspot data could be improved: (1) publishing error bars; (2) requiring new sunspot observers to use small apertures and high magnification; (3) using a logarithmic, rather than linear, average of the scaled sunspot counts; and (4) publishing all raw data and all procedures.