TY - JOUR A1 - Valliappan, Senthamizh Pavai A1 - Arlt, Rainer A1 - Diercke, Andrea A1 - Denker, Carsten A1 - Vaquero, J. M. T1 - Sunspot group tilt angle measurements from historical observations JF - Advances in space research N2 - Sunspot positions from various historical sets of solar drawings are analyzed with respect to the tilt angles of bipolar sunspot groups. Data by Scheiner, Hevelius, Staudacher, Zucconi, Schwabe, and Sporer deliver a series of average tilt angles spanning a period of 270 years, additional to previously found values for 20th-century data obtained by other authors. We find that the average tilt angles before the Maunder minimum were not significantly different from the modem values. However, the average tilt angles of a period 50 years after the Maunder minimum, namely for cycles 0 and 1, were much lower and near zero. The normal tilt angles before the Maunder minimum suggest that it was not abnormally low tilt angles which drove the solar cycle into a grand minimum. (C) 2016 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Sun: sunspots KW - Tilt angles KW - Cycle-averaged tilt angle Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2016.03.002 SN - 0273-1177 SN - 1879-1948 VL - 58 SP - 1468 EP - 1474 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Arlt, Rainer A1 - Valliappan, Senthamizh Pavai A1 - Schmiel, C. A1 - Spada, F. T1 - Sunspot positions, areas, and group tilt angles for 1611-1631 from observations by Christoph Scheiner JF - Mountain research and development N2 - Methods. In most cases, the given orientation of the ecliptic is used to set up the heliographic coordinate system for the drawings. Positions and sizes are measured manually on screen. Very early drawings have no indication of their orientation. A rotational matching using common spots of adjacent days is used in some cases, while in other cases, the assumption that images were aligned with a zenith-horizon coordinate system appeared to be the most probable. KW - Sun: activity KW - sunspots KW - history and philosophy of astronomy Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201629000 SN - 1432-0746 VL - 595 PB - EDP Sciences CY - Les Ulis ER -