Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, April 18, 2019.
The sky was mostly clear with intermittent light to moderate winds which provided average seeing and transparency at the time these images were taken.
The visible sunspot groups, the newly designated small sunspot group AR2739 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Bxo/beta) and the larger sunspot group AR2738 (Hhx/alpha) were both inactive and exhibited stall development in their respective structure; did not produce any significant flaring activity over the past 24 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 23. Other solar features observed are tiny plages associated with the two visible sunspot groups, a shallow filament, and few (quiescent and an eruptive) prominences at the limbs, mostly at the northern hemisphere as 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. 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 (5:05 PM – 5:30 PM, April 18, 2019):
Average Temperature: 39.3°C
Average Humidity: 11%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 14 kph from NNE
Average Cloud Cover: 5%
Average Air Pressure: 999.25 hpa
Average Solar Radiation: 178.55 W/m^2
Average UV Radiation: 319.5 µW/m^2 (low)
 
