Active Participation in the Programme

All experienced solar observers - no matter whether they're amateurs or professionals - are welcome to join the growing IS-Team. For the solar observations a telescope with an unobstructed aperture of at least 2.4" (60mm) should be used. Up to an aperture of 4" (100mm) we recommend the direct observation of the sun through filter glasses. Larger telescopes do also offer the opportunity of projecting the sun's picture onto a white screen without lowering the quality too much. Important fundamental security hints regarding solar observations can be found on our general information page on the sun.

Active solar observers observe the sun regulary, count sunspots carefully and send in the data at the beginning of the following month using postal mail, fax or E-mail. The headquarters of the Inter-Sol Programme is the Volkssternwarte Paderborn (Paderborn Public Observatory) in Germany. In this place the data is evaluated and monthly means are calculated. Every four months the active observers receive an evaluation of the collected data via postal mail.

Blank protocol sheets can be obtained by sending a short message to the Volkssternwarte Paderborn e.V., Germany. We also offer the opportunity of sending in data using a special E-Mail protocol. Information about this can be found on our Service Page.

If you are interested in participating in the Inter-Sol Programme please send us a short E-Mail message with the following pieces information: name, address, telephone and telefax number, E-Mail address, URL of your own web site and the geographical coordinates of your place of observatory. Please add whether you need blank protocol sheets or not (e.g. if you can copy them yourself or if you do not need them because you would like to send in your data using our E-Mail service). As soon as your first observation data arrive we will send you the latest evaluations and additional information via postal mail. We present the Inter-Sol Programme at our observatory in Paderborn, Germany, and are always glad to receiving pictures of your observatory and your surroundings. But do only send pictures via postal mail, please. For information on counting sunspots please be sure to have a look at the IS documentation.

We offer our active observers the opportunity of including a link to their own private web sites and their E-Mail addresses in our Observer's Net page. Please inform us if you would like your URL or E-Mail address to be included there. Without a special remark no entries are made even if we know the concerned addresses.

We're looking forward to your participation!