The angle of inclination of the sunspot symmetry axis to the solar surface

Abstract

The Wilson effect, used before only as a method of determining the physical depression of sunspots, is used here to estimate a quite different parameter - the sunspot symmetry axis inclination angle to the solar surface, this explains the observed negative Wilson effect. On the basis of photoheliograms taken with three telescopes of the High-Altitude Solar observatory ‘Peak Alma-Ata’, the Wilson effect for the whole solar disk is investigated, the east and west parts of the disk being studied separately. 111 sunspots of regular shape at different heliocentric angles were measured, eight of them being under observations from one limb to the other. To study the dependence of the Wilson effect on the heliocentric angle, all observations within an angular interval of 10° were averaged. The dependence thus derived is described by two sinusoids having the zero point shifted along both axes. The shift of the zero Wilson effect to the west, i.e., a shift along the heliocentric angle axis, can be caused by the deviation of the sunspot axis to the east from the normal to the solar surface. On the ‘line of sight-normal’ plane the angle corresponding to this deviation is ψ=34°±14°.