• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.103-113
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• 2012

The ButterStar Observatory at the Dongducheon High School has been working for photographic observations of the Sun since October 16, 2002. In this study, we observed the Sun at the ButterStar observatory for 3,364 days from October 16, 2002 to December 31, 2011, and analyzed the photographic sunspot data obtained in 1,965 days. The correction factor $K_b$ for the entire observing period is 0.9519, which is calculated using the linear least square method to the relationship between the daily sunspot number, $R_B$, and the daily international relative sunspot number, $R_i$. The yearly correction factor calculated for each year varies slightly from year to year and shows a trend to change along the solar cycle. The correction factor is larger during the solar maxima and smaller during the solar minima in general. This implies that the discrepancy between a relative sunspot number, R, and the daily international relative sunspot number, $R_i$, can be reduced by using a yearly correction factor. From 2002 to 2008 in solar cycle 23, 35.4% and 64.6% of sunspot groups and 35.1% and 64.9% of isolated sunspots in average occurred in the northern hemisphere and in the southern hemisphere, respectively, and from 2008 to 2011 in solar cycle 24, 61.3% and 38.7% of sunspot groups and 65.0% and 35.0% of isolated sunspots were observed, respectively. This result shows that the occurrence frequency for each type of sunspot group changes along the solar cycle development, which can be interpreted as the emerging and decaying process of sunspot groups is different depending on the phase of solar cycle. Therefore, it is considered that a following study would contribute to the efforts to understand the dependence of the dynamo mechanism on the phase of solar cycle.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.245-251
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• 2012

Since the development of surface magnetic features should reflect the evolution of the solar magnetic field in the deep interior of the Sun, it is crucial to study properties of sunspots and sunspot groups to understand the physical processes working below the solar surface. Here, using the data set of sunspot groups observed at the ButterStar observatory for 3,364 days from 2002 October 16 to 2011 December 31, we investigate temporal change of sunspot groups depending on their Z$\ddot{u}$rich classification type. Our main findings are as follows: (1) There are more sunspot groups in the southern hemisphere in solar cycle 23, while more sunspot groups appear in the northern hemisphere in solar cycle 24. We also note that in the declining phase of solar cycle 23 the decreasing tendency is apparently steeper in the solar northern hemisphere than in the solar southern hemisphere. (2) Some of sunspot group types make a secondary peak in the distribution between the solar maximum and the solar minimum. More importantly, in this particular data set, sunspot groups which have appeared in the solar southern hemisphere make a secondary peak 1 year after a secondary peak occurs in the solar northern hemisphere. (3) The temporal variations of small and large sunspot group numbers are disparate. That is, the number of large sunspot group declines earlier and faster and that the number of small sunspot group begins to rise earlier and faster. (4) The total number of observed sunspot is found to behave more likewise as the small sunspot group does. Hence, according to our findings, behaviors and evolution of small magnetic flux tubes and large magnetic flux tubes seem to be different over solar cycles. Finally, we conclude by briefly pointing out its implication on the space weather forecast.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.91-98
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• 2007

The existence of the North-South asymmetry of the solar activity is widely accepted even though the phenomenon is not yet satisfactorily understood. We have studied the temporal variations in the North-South asymmetry of the sunspot area during the period from May in 1874 to April in 2007. The combined data have been examined for periodicity in the solar activity North-South asymmetry. We have found that (i) solar northern and southern hemispheres show an asymmetric behavior, in terms of a sunspot area, (ii) sunspot areas in northern and southern hemispheres show clearly the 11 year periodicity when they were analyzed separately, as they do when analyzed together, (iii) in addition to the general 11 year periodicity in both northern and southern hemisphere solar activities, there are also noticeable shorter periodicities other than the 11 year periodicity in the asymmetry in North-South activity. Finally, we conclude by pointing out the importance of studying the North-South asymmetry of the solar activity.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.163-168
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• 2013

Parameters associated with solar minimum have been studied to relate them to solar activity at solar maximum so that one could possibly predict behaviors of an upcoming solar cycle. The number of active days has been known as a reliable indicator of solar activity around solar minimum. Active days are days with sunspots reported on the solar disk. In this work, we have explored the relationship between the sunspot numbers at solar maximum and the characteristics of the monthly number of active days. Specifically, we have statistically examined how the maximum monthly sunspot number of a given solar cycle is correlated with the slope of the linear relationship between monthly sunspot numbers and the monthly number of active days for the corresponding solar cycle. We have calculated the linear correlation coefficient r and the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient $r_s$ for data sets prepared under various conditions. Even though marginal correlations are found, they turn out to be insufficiently significant (r ~ 0.3). Nonetheless, we have confirmed that the slope of the linear relationship between monthly sunspot numbers and the monthly number of active days is less steep when solar cycles belonging to the "Modern Maximum" are considered compared with rests of solar cycles. We conclude, therefore, that the slope of the linear relationship between monthly sunspot numbers and the monthly number of active days is indeed dependent on the solar activity at its maxima, but that this simple relationship should be insufficient as a valid method to predict the following solar activity amplitude.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.23-29
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• 2021

Utilizing a new version of the sunspot number and group sunspot number dataset available since 2015, we have statistically studied the relationship between solar activity parameters describing solar cycles and the slope of the linear relationship between the monthly sunspot numbers and the monthly number of active days in percentage (AD). As an effort of evaluating possibilities in use of the number of active days to predict solar activity, it is worthwhile to revisit and extend the analysis performed earlier. In calculating the Pearson's linear correlation coefficient r, the Spearman's rank-order correlation coefficient rs, and the Kendall's τ coefficient with the rejection probability, we have calculated the slope for a given solar cycle in three different ways, namely, by counting the spotless day that occurred during the ascending phase and the descending phase of the solar cycle separately, and during the period corresponding to solar minimum ± 2 years as well. We have found that the maximum solar sunspot number of a given solar cycle and the duration of the ascending phase are hardly correlated with the slope of a linear function of the monthly sunspot numbers and AD. On the other hand, the duration of a solar cycle is found to be marginally correlated with the slope with the rejection probabilities less than a couple of percent. We have also attempted to compare the relation of the monthly sunspot numbers with AD for the even and odd solar cycles. It is inconclusive, however, that the slopes of the linear relationship between the monthly group numbers and AD are subject to the even and odd solar cycles.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.spc1
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• pp.7-12
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• 2003

We have studied the magnetic helicity of active regions by using the data from (1) the photo-electric magnetograph of the Okayama Observatory (1983-1995) and (2) the video magnetograph of NAOJ/Mitaka (1992-2000). The latitude distribution of helicity showed a tendency that the regions in the north (south) hemisphere have negative (positive) helicities, respectively, which is already known as the hemispheric sign rule. If we look into the sign of helicity as a function of time, the sign rule was less definite or was reversed sometimes in the sunspot minimum phase. We also studied the relation between the magnetic helicity and the sunspot tilt angles, and found that these two quantities are positively correlated, which is opposite to the expectation of a theoretical model. The implications of this cycle-phase dependence of helicity signs and the correlation between magnetic he Ii city and sunspot tilt angles are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.spc1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2003

In an early paper Skumanich suggested the existence of a scaling law relating the mean sunspot magnetic field with the square-root of the photospheric pressure. This was derived from an analysis of a variety of theoretical spot models including those by Yun (1968). These were based on the Schliiter-Temesvary (S- T) similarity assumption. To answer criticisms that such modeling may have unphysical (non-axial maxima) solutions, the S-T model was revisited, Moon et al. (1998), with an improved vector potential function. We consider here the consequences of this work for the scaling relation. We show that by dimensionalizing the lateral force balance equation for the S- T model one finds that a single parameter enters as a characteristic value of the solution. This parameter yields Skumanich's scaling directly. Using an observed universal flux-radius relation for dark solar magnetic features (spots and pores) for comparison, we find good to fair agreement with Yun's characteristic value, however the Moon et al. values deviate significantly.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.123.2-123.2
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• 2012

We investigate the solar flare occurrence rate and daily flare probability in terms of the sunspot classification supplemented with sunspot area and its changes. For this we use the NOAA active region data and GOES solar flare data for 15 years (from January 1996 to December 2010). We consider the most flare-productive eleven sunspot classes in the McIntosh sunspot group classification. Sunspot area and its changes can be a proxy of magnetic flux and its emergence/cancellation, respectively. We classify each sunspot group into two sub-groups by its area: "Large" and "Small". In addition, for each group, we classify it into three sub-groups according to sunspot area changes: "Decrease", "Steady", and "Increase". As a result, in the case of compact groups, their flare occurrence rates and daily flare probabilities noticeably increase with sunspot group area. We also find that the flare occurrence rates and daily flare probabilities for the "Increase" sub-groups are noticeably higher than those for the other sub-groups. In case of the (M+X)-class flares in the 'Dkc' group, the flare occurrence rate of the "Increase" sub-group is three times higher than that of the "Steady" sub-group. Our results statistically demonstrate that magnetic flux and its emergence enhance the occurrence of major solar flares.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.45.3-46
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• 2016

Solar activity shows a self-similarity as it has many periods of activity cycle in the time series of long-term observation, such as 13.5, 51, 150, 300 days, and 11, 88 years and so on. Since fractal dimension is a quantitative parameter for this kind of an irregular time series, we applied this method to long-term observations including sunspot number, total solar irradiance, and 3.75 GHz solar radio flux to predict the start and maximum times as well as expected maximum sunspot number for the next solar cycle. As a result, we found that the radio flux data tend to have lower fractal dimensions than the sunspot number data, which means that the radio emission from the sun is more regular than the solar activity expressed by sunspot number. Based on the relation between radio flux of 3.75 GHz and sunspot number, we could calculate the expected maximum sunspot number of solar cycle 24 as 156, while the observed value is 146. For the maximum time, estimated mean values from 7 different observations are January 2013 and this is quite different to observed value of February 2014. We speculate this is from extraordinary extended properties of solar cycle 24. As the cycle length of solar cycle 24, 10.1 to 12.8 years are expected, and the mean value is 11.0. This implies that the next solar cycle will be started at December 2019.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.125-135
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• 2023

Here, we investigated the observed sunspot areas with respect to latitudes using the Hilbert transform technique. Conventional study of the cyclic patterns of sunspots is based on the Lomb-Scargle periodogram, which only obtains the amplitude information. In comparison, our approach characterizes the amplitude as well as the phase of solar activity. We demonstrated the solar North-South asymmetry in the instantaneous amplitude by analyzing daily sunspot data set spanning from the solar cycles 11 to 24. Our findings confirm that the northern hemisphere is dominant in the solar cycles 14, 15, 16, 18, and 20. Unlike the amplitude, the North-South asymmetry in the period of solar activity could not be established. We have also found that the standard deviation as a measure of fluctuation in the phase derivative is minimum in the latitude band 10° < l < 20°, and the fluctuations obtained for latitudes above 30° are considerable.