Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, April 15, 2019.
The sky was clear with intermittent light to moderate winds which provided average seeing and transparency at the time these images were taken.
The lone visible sunspot group AR2738 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Hhx/alpha) has exhibited decay on its trailer spots, leaving its huge leader spot behind. It produced a few minor B-class solar flares over the past 24 hours. No active sunspot regions currently exist on the Sun’s visible disk. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 11. Some eruptive and quiescent prominences at the western limb, the scattered plage associated with AR27378 and a newly-emerged filament, were distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
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 (possibly up to isolated C-class) intensity, mainly from AR2738. The extent of the frequency and intensity of the Sun’s activity will highly depend on the magnetic flux fluctuations happening in the visible ARs in the coming 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 and Lunt H-alpha solar telescope and ZWO120MM CMOS 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 (4:50 PM – 5:20 PM, April 15, 2019):
Average Temperature: 29.4°C
Average Humidity: 22.3%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 33.47 kph from NW
Average Cloud Cover: 0%
Average Air Pressure: 1001.47 hpa
Average Solar Radiation: 188.4667 W/m^2
Average UV Radiation: 393 µW/m^2 (low)
