[Solar and Aurora Activity Chat]

Ok, I don't know how sunspots are measured, but if it was a few hundred years ago, I'm sure todays image would be recorded as having 2 or 3. Not the 35 posted on http://www.spaceweather.com

Morning. It can be a confusing topic, and it took me a while to realise that the sunspot number is not the same as the number of sunspots 'http://www.solen.info/solar/ This is an interesting website with up to date info on sunspot numbers and how they arrive at the figures they do. This website also suggests Februrary 2012 as a 'possible' cycle 24 max based on a projection of the smoothed sunspot number (see monthly data table at bottom of page). It is of course too early to confirm this as the solar max since a sustained period of increased solar activity could easily see a spike in the smoothed sunspot number.

[Do You Find Dark Mornings Depressing?]

Yes- that feeling of unsafeness really was apparent at 5pm today, my first day at work since the change. Having been driving around for 9 hours the last thing I need is darkness+stupid traffic+rain at 5pm. At least with darkness at 7am you know it can only get lighter and most of the drivers have not done a day's work. And at 2am there's hardly any other cars. Having to look out for that unlit cyclist while keeping an eye on 3 lanes of traffic on an overloaded roundabout in the dark (with those blue headlamps- yes they are dazzling to other car drivers as well) after a day at work is just one annoyance too many. With BST all year it would never be darker than civil twilight here at 5pm, and never fully dark till nearly 6 (and that would be mostly in the Christmas holiday period)- well here we are, drivers and cyclists agreeing on something! Mr Clarkson where are you? Campaign for it on Top Gear and maybe somebody high up will listen.....

Hi folks. BST throught the winter in my neck of the woods would mean the sun wouldn't rise until 10am in late December - no thank you! There's quite a difference in sun rise/set time along the length of Britain so it would be difficult to keep everyone happy without different time zones.

I appreciate road safety is a very important matter, but I think it's hardly grounds to play around with GMT for the whole of Britain - leave the clocks alone!!

What might work as a compromise would be if BST were extended to run from say early February to late November so that the morning weren't just so dark here up north - just and idea.

[Solar and Aurora Activity Chat]

Beautiful display of the aurora borealis (or mirry dancers as we call them locally) up here in Shetland tonight. Most vivid I’ve seen in perhaps ten years or more.