Improvements for the AAVSO Sunspot Number
Volume 26 number 1 (1998)
- Bradley E. Schaefer
- Physics Deparment, JWG 463
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.