FIRST SOLAR FLARE OF CYCLE 25! ------------------------------
On Tuesday "Mr. SolarSoft", Sam Freeland, discovered and documented the first solar flare of Cycle 25:
http://sdowww.lmsal.com/sdomedia/ssw/media/ssw/ssw_client/data/ssw_service_1...
According to Millennium Chief Observer Bill Marquette:
The southern hemisphere region located at S31E07 on 4/9/17:30 UT had, for a brief time, a small reversed polarity C-type/beta sunspot group and Sam reported that tiny A2.5 event at 4/9/12:57 UT. So, the first noteworthy region of Cycle 25 complete with a beta sunspot group and the first tiny flare event of the new cycle.
Bill also notes:
I made it (lived long enough) to see the beginning of another solar cycle! This is the 5th one! I started at the University of Michigan's McMath-Hulbert Solar Observatory in 1967 during Solar Cycle 20.
Like Cycle 24, this one may be starting with little overlap between low-latitude old-cycle regions and high- latitude new-cycle regions.
Kudos, Sam and Bill!