European Space Weather Week 2025

Revisiting Angelo Secchi's sunspot observations with a citizen science project.

Not scheduled

1h 15m

Miklagård

Poster CD3 - Refining the Sunspot Number Series : challenges and benefits for the Space Climate Community CD3 - Refining the Sunspot Number Series : challenges and benefits for the Space Climate Community

Speaker

Theodosios Chatzistergos (Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany)

Description

Angelo Secchi, a 19th-century Italian Jesuit and pioneering figure in astrophysics, carried out systematic solar observations for over 25 years at the Collegio Romano in Rome.
His original notebooks, documenting observations from 1853 to 1878, have recently been digitized, resulting in over 5,400 high-resolution images.

In this presentation, I will highlight the citizen science project, "Sunspot Detective" hosted on Zooniverse.
The project invited volunteers to contribute to the extraction of the number of individual sunspots from the digitized material.
I will present results from the analysis of data derived from this citizen science initiative as well as insights gained from it.
The outcomes of this work will contribute to future recalibrations of historical sunspot records, helping to improve our understanding of long-term solar activity.