Astronomical observatory in Ondřejov, a little town located 35 km south east from Prague (Czech Republic), was founded in 1898 as a private observatory. In 1928 the observatory was donated to state and Charles University, and from 1954 it became a part of Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (ASU CAS). The first observation of the Sun in Ondřejov started in 1944 and nowadays the observatory, and its Solar Physics Department, has a long tradition of different kinds of solar observation and studies. In 1984 Solar Patrol Service (SPS) was established within the department and since that time, unfortunately with some breaks, it has been monitoring the Sun and compiling solar activity reports and flare forecasts (www.asu.cas.cz/~sunwatch/).
Daily space weather bulletin is based on analysis of sunspot drawing, classification of sunspot groups, white light/Halpha synoptic images produced by an observer/forecaster on duty of SPS as well as on analysis of relevant solar data which are publicly available. It consists of a header and a text body that summarizes the evolution of active regions and prominences/filaments. Particular attention is dedicated to most active regions. For those information on recent evolution (classification, the largest event observed over past 24 hours) is provided together with description of the current situation and with prediction for next 24 hours (i.e. GOES soft X-ray flux level of the largest event expected within next 24 hours). Bulletin is issued at 17:00 UTC daily and is valid for next 24 hours from the time of issue.
This product consist of a header and a text body.
Date and time of observation – YYYY-MM-DD and hh:mm UTC. Date and time of SPS sunspot drawing. When not available, time 00:00 UTC is used.
Issued – YYYY-MM-DD at 17:00 UTC
Observer – name
Seeing conditions – very poor - 1, poor - 2, fair - 3, good - 4, exceptional - 5. When not available, the column is filled with the "-" symbol.
Analyzed Data – Sunspot drawing obtained at SPS and various. By "various" we mean various publicly available relevant solar data, especially when SPS drawing is not available.
Relative sunspot number - Relative sunspot number based on sunspot drawing obtained at SPS. When not available, the column is filled with the "-" symbol.
Activity level - The overall activity level. Five standard terms are used to describe the activity observed or expected within a 24 hour period:
1 - Very low - X-ray events less than C-class
2 - Low - C-class X-ray events
3 - Moderate - isolated (1 to 4) M-class X-ray events
4 - High - several (5 or more) M-class X-ray events, or (1 to 4) of M5 or greater X-ray events
5 - Very high - several (5 or more) of M5 or greater X-ray events
Provides summary on solar activity: active regions, their evolution and flare history, expected evolution, prominences/filaments.
The analysis and judgment of active region development is subjective and depends on the observer’s/forecaster’s experience.
This product is affected by weather/seeing conditions.
The observation of the Sun can be carried out form 04:00 – 17:00 UTC in summer and from 08:00 – 13:00 UTC in winter at SPS site. During this time interval the Sun is monitored and the drawing can be obtained. The service is provided 7/7, holidays included. The date and time of observation, together with seeing conditions, can be found in the header of the product. Even the SPS sunspot drawing was obtained early during the observation time, the SPS bulletin also reflects the solar activity up to its regular issue time (17:00 UTC).
When SPS data (sunspot drawing, synoptic images) are not available, we utilize various publicly available solar data (NOAA/SWPC, NASA/SDO, NASA/STEREO) for the preparation of the product.
The Latest tab shows the latest Daily space weather bulletin available. It is updated daily at 17:00 UTC and is valid for 24 hours from its issue time. The data are also available in JSON format via the API.
The Archive tab provides an access to archived daily bulletins since August 2022. By default it lists the last 10 days of observations. The list can be filtered out by providing start and end dates entry in the format YYYY-MM-DD. For example, entering the start date 2023-01-01 and end date 2023-01-31 and clicking the submit button will return all the data available from January 2023. The data are also available via the API.
Alert Subscription is not available for this product.
The top menu navigation bar allows to browse through the products as follows:
Latest
Switch to page showing the latest data.
Archive
Switch to page offering archive query functionalities.
Alert Subscription
Switch to page for email subscription of service.
Help
Provides more details on the data products, their properties, constraints and access methods, the providing Expert Group as well as this general help on navigation.