Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, April 3, 2019.
The sky was partly cloudy with intermittent light to moderate winds which provided average seeing and transparency at the time these images were taken.
The lone visible sunspot group AR2737 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Bro/beta) underwent little to no change in its sunspot structure, though in its decaying stage, and was generally inactive. No significant flaring activity was recorded over the past 24 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 17. The Sun still exhibits impressive solar activity through the presence of several small quiescent prominences on the western side and some huge eruptive ones on the eastern side, as well as filaments at the far northern hemisphere, and the scattered plage associated with AR2737, as distinctively 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 intensity, mainly from AR2737. 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 (4:55PM – 5:15PM, April 3, 2019):
Average Temperature: 37.5°C
Average Humidity: 13%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 14 kph from ESE
Average Cloud Cover: 35%
Average Air Pressure: 998.3 hpa
Average Solar Radiation: 250.595 W/m^2
Average UV Radiation: 540 µW/m^2 (low)
