March 3, 2016
Carrington Rotation 2173, a short summary
Carrington Rotation CR2173 ran from 2016/01/21 19:58 UT until 2016-02-18 04:07.
http://www.alpo-astronomy.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=78586
The rotation started with a total Active Region Area size of 180 and a Wolf Number of 59. It ended with a total region size of 260 millionths, and a Wolf Number of 260. During the period, the Sun showed 17 Active Regions (AR2484 – AR2501). There were 5 days where the total Active Region Areas reached, or exceeded 500 millionths. The rotation maxed out for the total region areas on February 9th, when the daily region area jumped from 460 to 650 millionths and the next day back to 350, mainly because of activity in AR2497. However, AR2497 also managed to produce the largest solar flare of the rotation on February 13th, an M1.8.
A smaller peak in total area of 540 millionths was noticed earlier on January 29th, when the largest sunspot of the rotation, AR2489, covered 300 millionths and registered a Dko on the McIntosh scale. The daily Wolf number reached its very pronounced maximum on February 6th at 113, which was the only day in the rotation where the Wolf number was above 100, but the spot area was only 400. The observations/images below, which were made on some of the key dates, were submitted by Monty Leventhal, Mike Borman and Theo Ramakers.
As of this writing, ALPO received 155 observations/images for the rotation, and we like to thank all that took the time to submit their images/observations.
The ALPO Team.
