Errors, suggestions for improvements in the text, figures and captions
to David Whitehouse: The Sun, a biography, Wiley, 1st edition, 2005:

Last updated: July 20, 2005

1) On page 10 and 191 heliostats are mentioned: These are single mirrors
reflecting the solar light in a special direction. Most of the solar
tower telescopes use coelostats, systems of two plain mirrors for this
purpose which avoids an image rotation.
The large solar telescope at Sacramento Peak, the "Richard B. Dunn Solar 
Vacuum Telescope", in fact uses a turret:
http://www.ufrsd.net/staffwww/stefanl/tlrbse2002/tour/dunn.htm
The presently largest solar telescope, the "MacMath Solar Telescope"
on Kitt Peak, is equipped with a heliostat.

2) On page 79 a caption "Scheiner showed how sunspots moved." is given. - But the
reproduced solar image sketch with sunspots observed in 1644 is drawn by
J. Hevelius and not Chr. Scheiner: It was published opposite to page 519
of the 'Selenographica' the most important publication of J. Hevelius.
For discrimiation between the similar drawings of Scheiner and Hevelius 
look at the coding of the observing years - Scheiner used old roman numbers 
and published his 'Rosa Ursina' in 1630 already. - Check also the observing place: 
Gedani stands for Gedansk (polish) or Danzig (german) - while Scheiner
observed first at Ingolstadt and later mainly at Rome.

3) On page 83 there is some mixture of the spectral signatures seen by
Wollaston and Fraunhofer: In fact Wollaston saw only seven dark lines
in the solar spectrum in 1802. Fraunhofer in 1814 counted more than 500,
but only a few of them - the strongest - were marked from red to blue with letters 
A to H - not Z. He did not know about the different elements in the spectrum.
Important is the introduction of a slit instead of a circular hole in
spectroscopy by Wollaston, otherwise even Newton could have seen the
dark spectral lines.

4) On page 131 some information is given about telescopes used to take
photographic images of the Sun at Greenwich. Two points are more important:
This series of images was complemented by similar images taken in other
places, e.g. India. The complete set of images was used to determine a
catalogue with positions and areas of sunspot groups observed 1874 until
1976, the "Greenwich Photoheliographic Results" (GPR). These data are still
used worldwide and are continued by hungarian colleagues as the
Debrecen Photogehliographic Results.

5) On page 137 a publication of the results of Schwabe in a book called
"Kosmos" is mentioned. The author of this book was Alexander von Humboldt,
giving it a large community of interest. The details of observing sunspots 
and the detection of a periodicity was published in the third volume
of the "Kosmos" first printed in 1850.

6) On page 138 the only figure is given in direct relation to the text.
It is called "Figure of historical sunspot observations" and shall give the
"number of sightings" from 1610 until 1975. In fact what is given should read
"annual mean values of the relative sunspot numbers" on the ordinate. To determine
the relative sunspot number of a day the observed number of sunspot groups
is multiplied by ten, then the number of all visible sunspots in added.
This sum is calibrated by the experience of the observer, the size of
the instrument and observing conditions ("seeing") to adjust it to the
series observers obtained using a special telescope at Zuerich.
From calibrations it is known that the relative sunspot number is
proportional to the total area of the sunspots visible, but can be
determined much easier.
It is a pitty that the most recent cycles of activity are missing. This
material could also be used for the discussion of solar activity and
climate changes. For complete data see e.g. http://sidc.oma.be/index.php3
from the World Data Center for the Sunspot Index.

7) On page 157/58 the famous eclipse expedition of Eddington in 1919 is 
described: It should have been mentioned that classical gravitation theory 
yields already a bending of the stellar light by 0".83 and the value of 1".7
claimed by Einstein was easier to detect, but not as clear as sometimes
written. For more details see e.g.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_power#Relativity_and_the_1919_eclipse

8) On page 198 the author discusses the usage of solar photovoltaics and
mentions my hometown Freiburg in Germany two times: The first is written
as "Freiberg" - since there exist several towns with this name, it is
a little misleading. The real Freiburg is indeed a center of solar research
since several decades and also a center of photovoltaic research and
production of photovoltaic modules.
To be complete it should be mentioned that in recent years photovoltaic 
power plants in Germany are supported by credits and high guaranteed payment
of electric power delivered to the local electric power distributors.

9) When discussing the "little ice age" (216 ff.) and other climate anomalies 
it should be stressed that e.g. the situation in large parts of Europe was
also influenced by the 30-year-war (1618-1648) and its damages and
reduction of population. In addition the possible influence of mayor
eruptions of vulcanos should not be just mentioned (page 222), but
discussed a little more. (At least comparable to the Stradivari topic...)

10) On page 267 a travelling time of 200 000 years for a photon is mentioned
to reach the solar surface. In a recent publication M.Stix claims that the
energy needs about 10 million years to pass through the Sun:
Solar Physics, v. 212, Issue 1, p. 3-6 (2003)

11) On pages 286/87 the statement is given that "the next cycle will be a
strong one". A prediction from a colleague, who also cites other predictions,
claims for a weaker next cycle. See our picture of the month December 2004:
http://www.kis.uni-freiburg.de/kishomepage_81_e.html

12) A linkage of the 16 color images between pages 182 and 183 with the
text would be helpful. But several changes should be applied: First at all
it should be mentioned that most of the colors are "false colors" just
used to give a coding not at all giving real visible colors for humans.
This even holds for images taken in visible light: e.g. the 13th image:
"These spots cover an area...", taken by the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI)
on SOHO.
Two images are discussed in more details:
a) The 11th "A color composite image of the Sun..." The better text can
e.g. be found in a description of the same image in the german textbook 
"Astronomie and Astrophysik" by Weigert, Wendker, Wisotzki published
by WILEY-VCH, 4th edition, Weinheim, 2005. Their caption - only a part
translated here - is: "Combination of narrow band filter images of the 
Sun in ultraviolet at 17.2, 19.5 and 28.4 nm with different color coding."
b) The 15th color image "All visible colors of the Sun's spectrum..."
gives finally real colors ! But how to understand the second sentence
there: "Our yellow star emits light of every color, though it is not
know why some colors are missing"... ?
The vertical black lines are the dark spectral lines first observed by 
Wollaston in 1802 - 7 of the strongest - and later seen more clearly 
by Fraunhofer.