The CCD spectroheliograph-magnetograph is a focal plane ancillary instrument for Pulkovo horizontal solar telescope ACU-5. The instrument is placed at an exit port of an isothermal high-resolution diffraction-grating spectrograph. The modified Leighton optical scheme for registration of sunspot magnetic fields is used. The instrument provides obtaining FITS digital video cards of radial velocities, magnetic fields and spectroheliogram in any line of spectral region 3900A - 11000A. The time of obtaining of one video card by the size 91″ $\times$154″ is equal 10.24sec. The angular resolution of the instrument is 0″.8; spectral resolution is 0.01-0.03A. There is remote access to a solar telescope in real time on the basis of Internet - process engineerings.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

Here we show that archaeomagnetic measurement confidence interval ($\alpha_{95}$) may serve as a new proxy for the past solar activity estimation. This proxy is compared with sunspot numbers during 1700-2000 yr and with other proxies during 1500–2000 yr.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

The main observable components of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are the core, cavity and the frontal structure (FS), which is the leading edge of the visible CME. The core of a CME is associated with an eruptive filament whose motion can be followed just from the solar surface. As a rule, the FS is visible in scattered white light (SOHO/LASCO) far from the CME origination site. In few cases in near-the-limb events, the FS was detected closer to the solar surface. However, it appears not possible to detect any manifestations of the FS in a reasonable proximity of the pre-eruptive filament localized on the sun far from the limb. The identification of the FS remains unclear. We propose a method to estimate parameters of the initial volume of a CME based on the comparison of measured height-time plots of its structural components with a self-similar solution of MHD equations describing the expansion of a CME.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

The paper presents study of the influence of coronal inhomogeneities on the average temporal pulse profile of radio emission from a compact solar pulse source located near the photosphere of the Sun. To consider both scattering and refraction of the radio emission propagating through the solar corona an integral representation of the wave field in the form of the interference integral is used. Thus formation of regular and random caustics and focuses as well as multipath structure of the radio emission received on the ground are taken into account. A numerical simulation of the average pulse profile, carried out for different parameters of the solar corona turbulence has shown that near-solar plasma can distort the emitted pulse significantly to form several pulses.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

In spite of the great progress of solar physics research, complete understanding of the solar activity nature is still lacking. Although everybody can observe the obvious cyclical sunspot variation, recent models of the process can not describe it quite accurately. Thus the official forecast of the 23-rd solar cycle, mainly basing on the dynamical models and precursors, was not proved. Many official predictions considered that the cycle 23 will have an amplitude higher than the previous one. In this case statistical models were neglected as the less reliable but some of those kinematic forecasts are proved to this time. This situation makes evidence that we have to not ignore statistical approaches in the study of the solar behavior at the current stage of the knowledge.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

When Jeremiah Horrocks correctly predicted, and with his friend William Crabtree observed, the Venus transit of 24 November 1639, these two men became more than the first astronomers in history to witness a rare celestial phenomenon. For Horrocks's and Crabtree's achievement constituted in may ways the first major astronomical discovery to be made in Renaissance England. It is also clear from their writings, moreover, that the two men, working in the isolation of rural Lancashire and well away from London or the universities, were fully conversant with contemporary discoveries made in continental Europe by Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Kepler, Gassendi, and others. In many ways, therefore, their work begs more questions than can easily be answered, such as why the rural North-West produced not only Horrocks and Crabtree, but other contemporary astronomers such as the Lancastrians Charles Towneley, Jeremy Shakerley, and their Yorkshire friend William Gascoigne. Yet in addition to whatever regional circumstances might have been present, and how easy it might have been for an educated rural Lancastrian to be fully informed about what astronomers in Paris, Prague, or Florence were doing, what cannot be denied is the outstanding originality of their wider achievement. For Jeremiah Horrocks in particular was a physical scientist of genius. His correct determination of the elliptical shape of the lunar orbit by 1638 when he was about 20 and his wider work on planetary dynamics place him amongst the most creative researchers of the seventeenth century. Central to Horrocks's and Crabtree's achievement was Crabtree's realisation by 1636 that contemporary published astronomical tables were unreliable, and that if one wanted to do serious work in understanding the heavens, then one had to observe and measure them for oneself, and learn to draw original conclusions.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

We study the sensitivity to AR of three photospheric lines, comparing experimental results, from THEMIS observations, with spectral synthesis, demonstrating the inappropriateness of using these lines as indicators of quiet sun modifications, because their variations in the active regions. We try to reconstruct the cyclic lines behavior.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

At the footpoints of loops spanning a site of flux emergence, earlier investigated in the papers by Solanki et al. (2003) and Lagg et al. (2004), we find large redshifts in the He 1083 nm line coexisting with an almost unshifted component. The speed associated with these redshifts reaches values as high as 40 km/s. We interpret these downflows in the context of several models: the free-fall downflow of matter along vertical field lines (Schmidt et al. 2000), the redshift by downward propagating acoustic waves (Hansteen 1993) and the motion of condensation regions to either side of loop footpoints (Müller et al. 2003). We present the temporal evolution of these redshifts and reconstruct the magnetic field vector in these regions for both the redshifted and the unshifted atmospheric component.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

We observed a sunspot almost exactly at disc centre on 23 September, 2003, with the Tenerife Infrared Polarimeter (TIP; Martínez Pillet et al. 1999) at the $\phi=70$, cm Vacuum Tower Telescope (VTT) on Tenerife. The highly symmetric spot passed the central meridian just at the time of observations; its solar latitude of $9^\circ$ N was almost perfectly compensated by the inclination of the solar axis $B_0=7^\circ$. We took the full Stokes vector through the line profiles of Fe I 10783 Å, Si I 10784.5 Å and Si I 10786.8 Å. The spatial sampling was adapted to the pixel size of 0.4 arcsec width; the VTT correlation tracker largely compensated image motion. The Stokes spectra were corrected for the dark and the gain matrices, as well as for instrumental polarisation and Stokes cross-talk. The spectral resolution finally achieved with TIP and its detector amounts to 32 mÅ.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

Relations between the geomagnetic A$_p$-index and magnetic and flare parameters of the super active regions (SARs) are analysed. The small and mean SARs having the spot areas S$\le 1000\, \mu h$ seem to differ from the SARs being large $\delta$-spots (SARs-$\delta$) not only by their parameters but also by relations between them.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

We summarize the results of our studies of CME-associated EUV dimmings and coronal waves by ‘derotated’ fixed-difference SOHO/EIT heliograms at 195Å with 12-min intervals and at 171, 195, 284, 304Å with intervals of 6 or 12 hours.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

The CORONAS-F satellite has been launched on 31 July 2001 (Oraevsky et al. 2002). To conduct measurements of the intensity of solar radiation in the EUV spectral region near the hydrogen line $L_{\alpha}(\lambda = 121.6$ nm) the spectrophotometer VUSS was installed onboard CORONAS-F. A vacuum photodiode was used as EUV detector in VUSS with the $CuJ$ cathode and $MgF_2$ entrance window.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

In this paper we compare the intermittence properties of magnetic fluctuations (non-Gaussian shape of probability density functions) observed in the solar wind (ACE) with the simultaneous occurrence of intermittence in the Earth's plasma sheet (GEOTAIL). Intervals with different level of magnetic turbulence are investigated separately.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

The preflare plage spectra were obtained with the ATsU-26 solar telescope mounted at the Peak Terskol. The spectra were acquired from 1 h to 20 min before the flare onset. The most prominent peculiarity of all the observed events are the tilted $H_{\alpha}$-emission details which appear less than 40 min before the flare. This result may testify to spiral structure of the ascending $H_{\alpha}$ loops. The ascending velocities in the chromosphere attain more than 10 km/s. Two crossing $H_{\alpha}$ loops were observed to interact before 1n flare. As a result of their interaction, the redistribution of velocities occurs in the both chromosphere and photosphere. This can be a consequence of the preflare reconnection at the lower atmospheric layers. As the flare onset approaches the ascend of photospheric material start to dominate. The preflare line-of-sight velocities exceed considerably those in the neighbouring unperturbed regions.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

This paper sets Jeremiah Horrocks and Much Hoole in the context of Lancashire society on the eve of the English Civil War. It focuses on the complexities of what it was to be a “Puritan” in an environment where religious labels and conflicts mattered a great deal; it examines the economic circumstances of county and locality at the time, pointing out the extent to which (despite widespread and deep poverty) the county's merchants were looking outwards to London, northern Europe and beyond; and it emphasizes that even in the apparently remote and rustic location of Much Hoole it was possible for Horrocks to sustain a scientific correspondence and to keep in touch with, and make his contribution to, developments on a much wider stage.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

Solar energetic particles generated in solar proton events produce in SOHO/EIT (and LASCO) images well-known ‘snowstorm’ effect which interferes analyses of those images. Similar ‘snowstorms’ are also observed in TRACE and CORONAS-F/SPIRIT images due to particles continuously present in the radiation belts and polar caps.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

It was found that filaments observed in EUV could be much more extended than in H$\alpha$. These extended dark structures visible in EUV are named EUV filaments. Their parts seen only in EUV (not observable in H$\alpha$ because of low opacity at the H$\alpha$ wavelength) are called EUV-filament extensions (or simply EUV extensions). For the EUV filament observed by SoHO on 15 October 1999 as northern polar crown filament, only a few small dark structures were seen in H$\alpha$. This suggests that the mass of the EUV extension is larger than, or at least comparable with, the mass of the parts of the filament observed in H$\alpha$. In our previous work we determined the 3D structure of the EUV extension of this EUV filament. In this paper we present the determinations of mass and average density of this EUV extension. For better density estimates we interpret the hydrogen Lyman lines observed by SUMER using non-LTE radiative transfer code. From the best fitting of Lyman lines we obtained a reasonable model of the EUV extension with low gas pressure, temperatures from 2$\times10^4$ K to $10^5$ K and with extended prominence-corona transition regions.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

Moreton waves are flare-associated waves observed to propagate across the solar disk in H$\alpha$, especially in the wing of H$\alpha$. The Flare Monitoring Telescope at Hida Observatory of Kyoto University observed 12 events associated with flare waves (i.e., Moreton waves and/or filament oscillations) in H$\alpha$ from 1997 to 2002. We review our studies of Moreton waves based on these observations;

1. relation between EIT wave and Moreton wave (Eto et al. 2002),

2. simultaneous observation with X-ray wave (Narukage et al. 2002),

3. three dimensional structure of flare-associated wave (Narukage et al. 2004),

4. relation between Moreton waves and filament eruptions.

Specific features of magnetic reconnection in solar flares are briefly reviewed and illustrated. In particular, the large-scale structure and dynamics of large flares are interpreted in terms of the rainbow reconnection model. The role of the betatron effect in collapsing magnetic traps is considered.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

Here we analyse the solar cycle (SC) 23 behavior and we also make a comparison with some previous cycles and present a few aspects concerning the forecasts made for SC 23 maximum. As regards the following cycle, in accordance to other early predictions, our empirical method, based on observing the flare energy release during the descendant phase of the precedent SC, estimate that the amplitude of SC 24 will be low.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html