On May 2, 2:13*am, T. Keating wrote:
On Sat, 02 May 2009 03:54:34 GMT, "Edmund Fitzgerald"

wrote:
"May 1, 2009"
http://www.spaceweather.com/
"Daily Sun: 01 May 09 Sunspot number: 0"
"Far side of the Sun: This holographic image reveals no large sunspots on
the far side of the sun."
"Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet"

The face of the Sun is without blemish:
http://mdisas.nascom.nasa.gov/gif_he...t_igram_fd.gif

snip...

http://www.spaceweather.com/

" BLANKETY-BLANK SUN: Sunspot 1016 has vanished.

So is the sun blank--or not? For more than 200 years, astronomers have
counted spots on the Earth-facing side of the sun and called that the
sunspot number.

For three hundred years only, sunspots have been observed and only ~23
sunspot cycles. During the Maunder minimum very few sunspots were
observed. Chinese observers recorded the first observation ~28 BC and
systemic observations began in the West with Galileo.

It would have been the height of folly to launch solar observing
satellites during the Maunder Minimum (had we the capacity) to observe
sunspots. It is the height of folly to do so now.

NASA has been central to ever misconstrued observation since its
inception and it continues to be so.

The most important new revelation is not that we can now observe
sunspots on the far side of the Sun, but that we can now assign their
magnetic polarity. The magnetic polarity of the disappearing sunspot
is that of solar sunspot cycle 23.

If history is any guide there is a good probability that sunspot cycle
23 will persist for more than 70 years.