Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, December 16, 2017.

The sky was partly cloudy and experienced slight to moderate air turbulence making the seeing and transparency poor at the time these images were taken.

Solar activity remains at very low levels over the past 24 hours. No sunspot groups were visible at the Sun indicating its relatively inactive state without any solar flaring recorded at this moment. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0.

In spite the absence of any active sunspot regions, huge eruptive prominences and filaments were still the main features of today’s Sun, especially a detaching filament at the southeastern limb which is currently being watched by space weather forecasters for any potential Earth-directed effect in the coming few days.

Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to remain at very low levels with chances of weak X-ray fluxes or flares ranging up to B-class intensity. Close monitoring is being conducted by numerous space weather agencies for any significant development.

*Technical reports courtesy of Solar Influence Data Center (SIDC), NOAA-Space Weather Prediction Center (NOAA-SWPC)