And they put them on the web. If you want to see "puzzling" lack of sunspot activity, here it is:
I'm also puzzled as to why the date is logged as 11 December, since it's the 11th of November.
Some information on the process: http://obs.astro.ucla.edu/150_draw.html
That doesn't in itself explain why they wouldn't be generating these diagrams automatically nowadays. Perhaps nobody's written a sunspot-finding computer vision algorithm that consistently produces the results they want, in a format vaguely compatible with the traditional drawings?
http://www.latimes.com/local/columnone/la-me-c1-mt-wilson-su...
He says: he likes the tradition, this convergence of science and art.
"The value," he says, "is not so much in the individual achievement but in maintaining the daily record."
However, the telescope's annual budget of $250,000, cobbled together with grants from NASA and the National Science Foundation, runs out in the spring, and Ulrich says odds of getting more money from NASA are long.
Edit - previous speculation I wrote: Hmmm.. maybe Steve Padilla wrote it as 12-11-2013 (like we write it in South America) instead of 11-12-2013 like in the U.S. ?