Asymmetry and variations of solar limb darkening along the diameter defined by diurnal motion in April 1981

Abstract

Unexpected asymmetries and variations, which showed up in the first, preliminary reductions of new limb-darkening observations made in June 1986, near the present minimum of solar activity, stimulated a re-analysis of our limb-darkening observations made in April 1981 at Kitt Peak (Neckel and Labs, 1984). The results seem to indicate rather definitely that the intensity distribution across the disk varies at all observed wavelengths between 3300 and 6600 A with amplitudes in the order of 1–2 % and time-scales from minutes to hours. Asymmetries in the intensity distribution with respect to the disk center are a frequent phenomenon. There can be no doubt, that also the absolute disk center intensity undergoes variations with comparable size and modulation, as they were in fact recently observed by Koutchmy and Lebecq (1986). Presumably, the solar oscillations contribute a significant part to the observed effects. However, due to the 5–7 min periodicity of our observations no definite conclusions can be drawn.