What a neat name for this community: Sunspot. Everybody here at the National Solar Observatory is involved in researching activity of the sun. Much of the information provided was above my head but came away with a few gems.
When asked what he thought about "Global Warming", the scientist who escorted us around the site said it seemed like a great way for the government to get your $'s!Much of the analysis of the sun is done by analyzing the colors in the solar spectrum. From this they can determine composition (minerals), temperature, and strength of the magnetic field.
The sun has been going through a low activity cycle where there have been no sunspots for over a year which is unusual. The sunspots numbers normally increase (up to 150-200 concurrently) and decrease in number over a 10-year cycle. Sunspots are cooler regions. Maybe this is the source of our global warming?
The Dunn Solar Telescope (pictured) is 136' above the surface and we can see it from out campsite 40 miles away. Even more exciting is that it is built 228' into the ground and that the rotating part of this telescope runs along a container holding 10 tons of mercury. Hmm! Probably wouldn't be able to be made that way these days!
By the way, they have had so much more snow than they can remember this year. But we didn't have to worry about destroying the grass.