Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, April 1, 2020.

The sky was generally clear with intermittent light to moderate winds which provided good transparency but average seeing at the time these images were taken.

The recently designated sunspot group AR2759 has its leader spot grew slightly. As per reports from space weather agencies, given its relatively simple magnetic unipolarity (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot magnetic configuration: Axx/alpha), it is unlikely to pose any threat to any major flaring activity depending on its development in the next few days. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 12. The Sun also exhibited some huge eruptive prominences (non-Earth directed) mostly at the southeastern limb as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.

Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to remain at low levels with chances of weak X-ray fluxes or flares ranging up to B-class (possibly up to C-class) intensity, mainly from AR2759. 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 and Lunt H-alpha solar telescope and QHYCCDIII mono camera for H-alpha imagery, mounted on Skywatcher EQ6 Pro. 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 – 5:20 PM, April 1, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 31.35°C

Average Humidity: 24%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 15.1 kph from NW

Average Cloud Cover: 0%

Average Air Pressure: 1002.15 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 261.5 W/m^2