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From Students:

You can observe sunspots safely and easily from school or home with very simple instruments. Remember, however, you should never look directly at the Sun. Severe eye damage can occur.

When you make your own observations, you will project the image of the Sun on a piece of white paper using a sunspot viewer. Carefully and quickly draw the outline of the Sun on the paper and make marks on the paper where the sunspots are. You should try to make each mark the same size, shape, and position as the sunspot projected on the paper.

It can be very useful to observe the sunspots at the same time of day for as many days as possible. If you can't get out to observe sunspots at home or school on a particular day, you can "observe" sunspot activity for that day from From Observatories or From Satellites . Observing at the same time of day allows you to compare changes over a constant time period and discover very important characteristics of the Sun.

NASA scientists use a variety of sources of data- this is for verification. You should not depend on a single source to draw a conclusion either. Compare your drawings with images from professional ground telescopes (From Observatories) and from the NASA satellites (From Satellites ).

Predict your Sunspot Suspect

The Sunspot Suspect is the sunspot you think is most likely to be the location for an energetic flare that might affect Earth. Each sunspot has its own unique number that will identify it. When you have compared your drawings from your own solar telescope with images from ground-based and satellite telescopes, you will predict your Sunspot Suspect and submit it to the network. You can compare your prediction with other students from all over the world.

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