On the existence of the east-west asymmetry in the optical observations of the solar corona

The east-west asymmetry has been analyzed using the 1946–2000 corona observation data for the green line at the Kislovodsk station. A positive east-west asymmetry has been revealed throughout the entire observation period except for three years, 1994–1996. Time variations of the east-west asymmetry for certain periods coincide with those for flares. Seasonal variations of the east-west asymmetry revealed earlier by other authors are not confirmed. If seasonal variations of the east-west asymmetry in the corona exist, their amplitudes are smaller than or comparable to the instrumental errors, errors caused by atmospheric variations during the observation period and to differences between the corona-intensity measuring systems used at different observatories.