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The First Evidence of Solar Cycle 23? (1Jun94)
(from NSO, NOAO Newsletter No. 38, 1 June 1994)

Each year since 1990, magnetic field observations have been obtained
with the magnetograph at the Vacuum Telescope at Kitt Peak by Sara
Martin and Karen L. Harvey during each spring and fall to detect the
first bipolar regions of cycle 23.  Initial analysis of the
pole-to-equator, time-series magnetograms suggests that in the spring
of 1993 small bipolar regions emerging at high latitudes showed a
preferential orientation that is reversed from the lower-latitude
active regions, but is consistent with the region orientation for the
next sunspot cycle.  We suggest that this component of activity may
represent the beginning of magnetic flux emergence of Cycle 23.
Further observations are being made to verify this conclusion and to
follow the development of the ensemble of activity belonging to the
next solar cycle in its earliest stages.

Karen Harvey

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