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Monitoring the Solar Radius from the Royal Observatory of the Spanish Navy since 1773

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Abstract

The solar diameter has been monitored at the Royal Observatory of the Spanish Navy (today the Real Instituto y Observatorio de la Armada: ROA) almost continuously since its creation in 1753 (i.e. during the past 250 years). After a painstaking effort to collect data in the historical archive of this institution, we present here the data of the solar semidiameter from 1773 to 2006, making up an extensive new database for solar-radius measurements, which can be considered. We have calculated the solar semidiameter from the transit times registered by the observers (except for values of the solar radius from the modern Danjon astrolabe, which were published by ROA). These data were analysed to reveal any significant long-term trends, but no such trends were found. Therefore, the data sample confirms the constancy of the solar diameter during the past 250 years (approximately) within instrumental and methodological limits. Moreover, no relationship between solar radius and the new sunspot-number index has been found from measurements of the ROA. Finally, the mean value for the solar semidiameter (with one standard deviation) calculated from the observations made in the ROA (1773 – 2006), after applying corrections for refraction and diffraction, is equal to \(958.87^{\prime\prime}\pm1.77^{\prime\prime}\).

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Acknowledgements

Support from the Junta de Extremadura (Research Group Grants GR15137 and GRU10158) and from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of the Spanish Government (FIS2013-42840-P, AYA2011-25945, and AYA2014-57556-P) is gratefully acknowledged. We thank the referee for helpful comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Física, Universidad de Extremadura, Mérida, Badajoz, Spain

    J. M. Vaquero

  2. Instituto Universitario de Investigación del Agua, Cambio Climático y Sostenibilidad (IACYS), Universidad de Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain

    J. M. Vaquero, M. C. Gallego, V. M. S. Carrasco & A. J. P. Aparicio

  3. Departamento de Física, Universidad de Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain

    M. C. Gallego, J. J. Ruiz-Lorenzo, V. M. S. Carrasco & A. J. P. Aparicio

  4. Real Instituto y Observatorio de la Armada, San Fernando, Cádiz, Spain

    T. López-Moratalla & F. J. González-González

  5. Departamento de Matemáticas, Universidad de Extremadura, Mérida, Badajoz, Spain

    E. Hernández-García

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  1. J. M. Vaquero
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Correspondence to J. M. Vaquero.

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Vaquero, J.M., Gallego, M.C., Ruiz-Lorenzo, J.J. et al. Monitoring the Solar Radius from the Royal Observatory of the Spanish Navy since 1773. Sol Phys 291, 1599–1612 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-016-0939-5

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