Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, September 17, 2021.
The sky was mostly clear with moderate to fresh breeze which provided good transparency but average seeing at the time these images were taken.
Solar activity remains at very low levels with no sunspot groups visible for the 3rd consecutive day. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0. A minor C3.5-class solar flare produced from a far-side active region (old AR2860) behind the SE limb was recorded by space weather agencies early this morning.
Nothing much significant going on with the Sun lately aside from some small quiescent prominences at the NW limb, as well as few huge eruptive prominences at the SW limb, as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* expect very low solar activity with the likelihood of flaring activities not exceeding C-class levels in the next few days. Close monitoring is being conducted by numerous space weather agencies for any significant development.
Equipment used are Skywatcher 120mm refractor telescope with Baader filter and unmodified Canon EOS 1D Mark IV DSLR camera for visible imagery. For H-alpha imagery, the equipment used are Lunt 60mm H-alpha solar telescope, and QHYCCD 290III mono camera; all mounted on Skywatcher EQ6 pro mount Pre-processing of visible solar images was performed in PIPP, stacking in Autostakkert, slight wavelet adjustments in Registax 6, and post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CC.
*TECHNICAL REPORTS COURTESY OF SOLAR INFLUENCE DATA CENTER (SIDC), NOAA-SPACE WEATHER PREDICTION CENTER (NOAA-SWPC)
Weather Data (5:00 PM – 5:30 PM, September 17, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 38.57°C
Average Humidity: 26.0%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 26.4 kph from NNW
Average Cloud Cover: 10%
Average Air Pressure: 1000.0 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 151.33 W/m^2
