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SUNSPOT MONITORING – FEBRUARY 2, 2021

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, February 2, 2021.

The sky was mostly clear with intermittent moderate breeze which provided good transparency but average seeing at the time these images were taken. 

Solar activity has remained at very low levels over the past 24 hours. On a positive note, a new small bipolar sunspot group has emerged at the Sun’s northwestern quadrant and was designated as AR2801 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Bxo/beta). No significant flaring activity was recorded. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 12. Nothing much significant going on with the Sun lately except mostly small quiescent prominences at the limbs, few short mound filaments at the far northern and southern hemispheres, and the small enhanced plage associated with AR2801, as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to be at very low levels with chances of solar flares of up to B-class intensity, mainly from AR2801. Close monitoring is being conducted by numerous space weather agencies for any significant development, especially from the emerging new developing active region.
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 (4:30 PM – 5:00 PM, February 2, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 23.5°C

Average Humidity: 47%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 17.9 kph from WNW

Average Cloud Cover: 10%

Average Air Pressure: 1008.4 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 225.0 W/m^2

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