I scrutinized that data pretty closely, and if it's the current state of
the art, it makes me suspect that what I'm asking for may as yet be
impossible to film. Rather than a statistical history of where sunspots
are photographed from Earth, which is what is presented on that site,
I'm wondering what paths are followed by an isolated pair of oppositely
polarized sunspots, as they migrate from formation at the "tropics," to
coalescence and destruction at the equator.

I suspect that it may be impossible to see this process in action, since
the sun rotates fairly quickly, and soon after a sunspot is detected, it
disappears behind the sun, where observers lose track of it. Am I
correct in this hypothesis, and if so, does anybody know what are the
solar rotational period and the (approximate) lifetime of a pair of
sunspots?

TIA


"Mike" wrote in news:7zo3e.285$1r6.99@trnddc02:


"John Schutkeker" wrote in message
. 30.42...

Is anybody aware of any published data on the path that sunspots take
as they move across the surface of the sun? TIA.


Here's a link that posts up to date data!

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/