Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1919 — Eight Well Defined Soots on the Sun and May Be Seen With Three-Inch Telescope [ARTICLE]

Eight Well Defined Soots on the Sun and May Be Seen With Three-Inch Telescope

There are, at present, eight very well defined spots on the sun, that may be well seen with a three-inch telescope, notes a correspondent. Six of them lie, in groups of two, along a parallel to the sun’s equator, and about 15 degrees north of it-. The other two are close together and about the same distance south of the solar equator, near the sun’s eastern limb. If seen near the horizon these parallels are almost vertical. Since'one cannot look directly at the sun. these spots can be best seen by focussing theHfflage of the sun on a white card held at a little distance from the eyepiece of the telescope or field glass. When the Image of the sun is three Inches in diameter, these spots appear to be about one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, or about one-fifteenth of the sun’s diameter. This would make their actual breadth about 17,000 miles, or somewhat more than twice the diameter of the earth. Their nature is not precisely known, but they are believed to be eruptions in the sun’s surface. The gigantic scale of solar activity is well illustrated by their enormous size. The only Influence that sun spots have been actually demonstrated to have on the earth is on its magnetism. At a time of many sun spots, magnetic disturbances are more numerous and violent, and the aurora borealis is more frequent.