Forecast: Mostly clear with scattered coronal mass ejections

"Late last year, solar physicists declared that solar minimum is coming. It certainly is. Monthly-averaged sunspot numbers have reached their lowest levels since 1997. If this trend holds, solar minimum should arrive in 2006, followed by a rapid ascent back to solar maximum in 2010. It is widely believed that sunspots vanish and solar flares stop -- completely -- during solar minimum. Not so. Occasional big sunspots will unleash flares and spark auroras in 2006, just not so often as in recent years."



See Skychurch for some of the images
that I captured as Solar Max came and went.