Here is today’s white-light solar imagery taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, April 8, 2019.

The sky was mostly cloudy to overcast with light to moderate winds which provided poor seeing and transparency at the time these images were taken.

The lone visible sunspot group AR2738 (redesignated from AR2736; Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Hsx/alpha) has been producing several B-class solar flare activity, based on recent space weather agency records, which are minor and not Earth-directed since it has recently rotated into Earth-view from the eastern limb. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 11.

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. 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, 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 (5:30PM – 5:50PM, April 8, 2019):

Average Temperature: 31°C

Average Humidity: 32%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 17.9 kph from N

Average Cloud Cover: 95%

Average Air Pressure: 996.65 hpa

Average Solar Radiation: 97.36 W/m^2

Average UV Radiation: 99 µW/m^2 (low)