Average position of the polarities from τ = −18.4 h (three time intervals, TI-03) before the emergence time, until τ = 2.1 days after (TI+09) increasing in distance away from the centre. This figure is similar to Fig. 2 Schunker et al. (2019), except that only 78 of the emerging active regions have been used in both the low- and high-resolution cases (red and blue, respectively). Differences between the high- and low-resolution cases do not change our previous science conclusions or about the onset of Joy’s law. The blue shaded region indicates Phase 1 of the emergence process (Schunker et al. 2019) when the polarity separation speed is increasing.