The automated detection of solar features is a technique which is relativelyunderused but if we are to keep up with the flow of data from spacecraft suchas the recently launched Solar Dynamics Observatory, then such techniques willbe very valuable to the solar community. Automated detection techniques allowus to examine a large set of data in a consistent way and in relatively shortperiods of time allowing for improved statistics to be carried out on anyresults obtained. This is particularly useful in the field of sunspot study ascatalogues can be built with sunspots detected and tracked without any humanintervention and this provides us with a detailed account of how varioussunspot properties evolve over time. This article details the use of theSunspot Tracking And Recognition Algorithm (STARA) to create a sunspotcatalogue. This catalogue is then used to analyse the magnetic fields insunspot umbrae from 1996-2010, taking in the whole of solar cycle 23.
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