I think that the SOHO images are updated at least once a day. The latest sunspot image was taken at 10:16 UT today. The satellite is in a zero-gravity region between the earth and the sun, so I would think that it is always on our side of the sun, although I don't know for certain. The sun's rotation period is a function of latitude, 25 days at the equator, 33 days at 75 degrees (Skilling and Richardson, 1947).
SOHO images are at http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime-update.html Gordon At 07:14 AM 1/3/01 -0700, you wrote:
>Hello all: I just looked at the SOHO solar satellite photos of the sunspots and noticed that the spots were different from the ones I saw on Christmas morning. Could it be that SOHO was on the opposite side of the sun when the picture was taken? Or maybe the sun's rotation since Christmass brought the sun's farside into view. If an earthboud observer wants to see both sides of the sun, how long will he have to wait between observations until the sun rotates 180 degrees? What is the rotation rate of the sun? John Carmichael Tucson Arizona
Gordon Uber [EMAIL PROTECTED] San Diego, California USA Webmaster: Clocks and Time: http://www.ubr.com/clocks
