The contents of my first astrophysical publication (in german) in
Sterne und
Weltraum 5, 267 (November 1966) was a report
about my determination of relative sunspot numbers from
June 1961 until May 1966. The last chapter gives an insight into
solar-stellar seeing - it reads (translated):
Besides the direct results of the solar observations, I had the
opportunity to use the granulation as a quality indicator for
the observations. It was even often correct to expect from good
visibility of the granulation good conditions for planetary observations in the
night. This possibility of weather forecast may make it of interest for
'night astronomers' to look sometimes to the sun.
In autumn 2006 - when celebrating the 40th anniversary of this publication -
some new reductions and comparison with international data were performed:
The excess of sunspots on the northern solar hemisphere - which I
suggested from my data - is clearly seen in the graphs from SIDC.
The monthly averages of the SIDC sunspot relative numbers correlate
with a value of + 0.85 with the 46 monthly means of my old observations,
as read from the graph published. The absolute values of the
SIDC data are on average 36 percent larger than mine.
The correlation is even higher than +0.9 (+0.95 and +0.97 for the data from
1962 and 1963, respectively) for years with a lot of observations. - There is an
exception of a correlation of 'only' 0.61 for the data from 1961, which may be
explained by the short observations I did in the beginning with the refractor
and little experience I had. - See the old text for details about the observing
methods used.
Similar high correlations and ratios were also obtained for the daily data. But it has to be kept
in mind, that only in 1961, 1962 and begin of 1963 - when I still was a pupil - the number of
observations was sufficient to determine good monthly or annual averages.
In the following years - when I was studying physics in Heidelberg and had less
time for solar observations - they reached less than 100 per year !
If you are interested in the complete german text of my first
publication you may ask me. You may use the e-mail connection below !
I have pointed out that the publication discussed above was my
first astrophysical publication: My first publication in a journal
was a technical report about special equipment to dry bricks. It was
published together with my father, an engineer specialised in brick production,
and appeared in german in the journal "Der Ziegelmarkt" in September 1966.