A SHORT EARLY HISTORY OF THE A.L.P.O. SOLAR SECTION
by
Richard E. Hill
Solar Section Coordinator
(copyright 1999)
On Aug. 14, 1981 the annual Business Meeting of the ALPO was held
"in the Red Room of the Dining Hall on the campus of Kutztown
State College at Kutztown, PA at 5:15 p.m., E.D.S.T.", not to put
too fine a point on it. At this meeting the then Jupiter
Recorder, Phillip Budine, suggested the ALPO establish a Solar
Section. Several observers had inquired about such a Section
prompting his proposal. There was some initial opposition arguing
that the ALPO should only be a LUNAR and PLANETARY observing
organization. So, in order to determine the extent of interest it
was decided that a questionnaire should be sent out with the next
Strolling Astronomer (Journal of the ALPO or SA here) to poll the
members on the future direction of the Association and
establishment of Meteor and Solar Sections. [SA V.29, Nrs. 3-4,
Dec. 1981, p.60-61.]
Such a questionnaire was sent out and this author responded
affirmatively to the establishment of both Sections with the
philosophy that the ALPO should encourage the study of all
astronomical matters in the solar system. This was backed up with
an offer to help out with the Solar Section if needed. About 15%
of the membership responded to the questionnaire. The "consensus"
favored the establishment of the two Sections. These results were
the topic of some discussion at the annual Business Meeting of
the ALPO, this time held at ALCON '82 in Peoria, Illinois on July
22 (at 5:00 p.m., CDT for those keeping such details). At this
meeting, Richard Sweetsir suggested that "trial" Sections be
established which was moved by ALPO Assoc. Director, Dr. John
Westfall, to be done on a two year trial basis, conditional on
discussions with the American Association of Variable Star
Observers and the American Meteor Society to set areas of study
that would not duplicate efforts of the groups. The motions were
seconded and passed thus establishing the Solar Section. [SA
V.29, Nrs.9-10, Dec., 1982, 190-191.]
Only a week or so after this meeting I was contacted by ALPO
Director and Founder, Walter Haas and asked to start up the Solar
Section. From the start the focus of the Solar Section was on
solar morphology. There was no amateur organization in the U.S.
that was studying the structure of various solar features and
their activity on the Sun other than sunspot counting or
detection of enhanced radio signals. Discussions on this with
AAVSO Director and long time friend, Janet Mattei, finished
setting our course. She was very enthusiastic about the new
Section and offered some good suggestions which helped us along
over the years.
An outline of the proposed activities of the new Section appeared
in the Strolling Astronomer soon thereafter. It was an ambitious
schedule and was nearly achieved during the height of Cycle 22.
The central thrust of the article and indeed the main goal of the
Section to this day, is to maintain a network of ALPO Solar
Section observers around the world that can provide 24 hour
monitoring of solar activity in white light. Eventually H-alpha
coverage would be added as well. Similar to the AAVSO we make our
data available to the professional community at no cost. This has
resulted in the work of Section observers being published in
professional journals and publications for over a decade now. [SA
V.29, Nrs.11-12, Mar., 1983, p.234-236.]
To keep the professional community informed about our activities
and available data, a newsletter called the Rotation Report (RR)
was initiated with solar rotation #1735, May of 1983. This
newsletter listed on the front, all data received in the
preceeding four weeks, and on the back were notes and information
for the observers. The Section was kept in close communication by
this method. The RR was mailed out to dozens of professional
researchers and institutions around the world, paid for by
generous contributions from the Section members, and in some
cases from the pockets of the Recorders themselves. However, it
was directly responsible for the success of the Solar Section in
cycle 22.
Solar eclipses fell into the province of the Solar Section at the
start. The eclipse of May 30., 1984 provided an early opportunity
for the Section to make a contribution. Observations of this
eclipse from the U.S. and Great Britain were highlighted in a
report in the Strolling Astronomer. [SA V.30, Nrs.11-12, Nov.,
1984, p.248-51.]
By summer 1984 the amount of data coming in, the printing and
distribution of the Handbook, and the regular publishing of the
RR and articles for the Strolling Astronomer made it impossible
for one person to handle the task. There were some 50 observers
in a dozen countries. A call for help was sent out and Paul
Maxson of Phoenix, Arizona, stepped forward to become the first
addition to the Section. His more than decade long tenure with
the Section helped to make it known around the world. Besides
being an excellent observer, Paul was adept at organization and
was the one who brought the computer age to the ALPOSS. He took
in the data and produced the RR improving its readability and
informative content.
The addition of Maxson to the Section staffing allowed the author
time needed to go throught the laborious process of preparing the
reports. Unlike any other of the Sections in the ALPO, the Solar
Section does not have the annual (or more frequent in the case of
inferior planets) conjunction periods to stop and analyze the
submitted observations and activity. This must all be done while
additional observations are coming in. In order to keep up a
schedule of such reports it is necessary, as has now been
learned, to have one person whose entire function is to prepare
the report. The first such report appeared in the Strolling
Astronomer for October, 1985 (V.31, N.3-4) covering the rotations
1735-1738, or 1983-05-08.39 to 1983-07-29.00. It established the
general format for such reports that has existed to this day,
albeit with some diagrammatic and other slight improvements and
embellishments.
Starting about the same time, more and more computing advances in
amateur astronomy were making their way into the Section. People
like Brad Timerson and the new Recorder, Paul Maxson, were using
IBM 286 (or clones) and TRS-80s to write ephemerides or maintain
data files. It was a portent of things to come.
Early on in the history of the Section H-alpha observations were
being sporadically submitted. Because of the prohibitive cost of
good monochromatic equipment there were only a couple of
observers that could do such observations. Notable among these
were Randy Tatum, Jean Dragesco and Frank Mellilo. Randy's work
comprised both prominence and disk observations using Daystar
equipment. Because of the excellent quality of his work he was
asked to write up his procedures which appeared as an article in
the Strolling Astronomer. [SA V.30, Nrs.5-6, Jan., 1984, p.97-
103.] In Sept. of 1984 Randy was also made a Recorder for the
Solar Section. Shortly afterwards he published a Handbook for
Monochromatic Observing.
Several important advances were made in amateur solar photography
due to the combined effort of a number of people in the Section.
These were innovations that led to the arc second quality (or
better in some cases) of photographs taken by Section observers
then and since. The first of these was the discovery in 1983 that
the curvature of field of the standard 8" f/10 Schmidt-
Cassegrain, being similar to the surface of a basketball (a
radius of about 6") made it impossible to get the center and edge
of Sun in sharp focus at the arc second level. [TELESCOPE OPTICS,
Rutten, H.G.J. and van Venrooij, M.A.M., p. 82-84.] Since, in the
daytime sky the seeing was only about arc second quality about 1%
of the time there was no harm in stopping such a telescope down
to 4" off axis (even with the secondary taking a bite out of the
aperture) increasing the focal ratio to f/20 and thus increasing
the depth of focus. The second innovation was to get observers to
use lighter filtration for photography. To that time the only
filters that one could get over the counter were all of a density
suitable for visual observations. This led to exposure times
longer than 0.01 sec. The resulting photographs suffered from
vibration problems, drive problems and seeing smear caused from
daytime atmospheric heating. It was necessary to get exposure
times down to 0.001 sec. If this were done then even a telescope
with no drive could take arc second quality images. Because
Tuthill offered a two sheet Mylar-type filter (and was the only
one to do so) our observers could use these with each sheet
mounted separately. Then for visual use, both sheets would be
employed and for photography only one would be used. Further,
Tuthill was willing to offer ALPOSS observers a discount on the
purchase of his Solar Skreen material. Once this was done our
observers, particularly Paul Maxson and Gordon Garcia, began to
routinely submit photographs that showed granulation and
penumbral grains and filaments. In the case of Garcia's images
one of the astronomers at National Solar Observatory remarked
that only rarely could they get as good an image from the McMath-
Pierce telescope on Kitt Peak!
Thus by the end of 1985, and the end of solar cycle 21, the Solar
Section had it's team in place for coverage of cycle 22.