Solar Variability and the Relation of Facular to Sunspot Areas during Solar Cycle 22

摘要

The total irradiance of the Sun has been found to vary mostly because of changes in the areas of dark sunspots and bright faculae. Improved observations, such as those discussed in this paper, are needed to understand better the interplay between these two competing features. In this paper, faculae are deter- mined by observations using a filter centered at the Ca II K line (393.4 nm) with a bandpass of 0.9 nm. This filter allows the detection of faculae across the entire solar disk rather than just at the limb, as is the case for white-light faculae. Sunspots are detected with a filter at 672.3 nm with a bandpass of 9.7 nm.