Improvements for the AAVSO Sunspot Number

Volume 26 number 1 (1998)

Download this article (pdf)

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.