SUNSPOT MONITORING – AUGUST 12, 2021

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, August 12, 2021.

The sky was partly cloudy with moderate to fresh breeze which provided average transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.

Solar activity has remained at very low levels over the past 24 hours. Both AR2854 (already invisible) and AR2855 (Axx/alpha) exhibited decay in their respective unipolar sunspot structures. No significant flaring activity was recorded. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 11. 

Nothing much going on with the Sun lately aside from only small quiescent prominences at SE, NE, and NW limbs, and the noticeable remnant plages of post-AR2853 and post-AR2854 were distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.

Space weather agencies* forecast very low solar activity of only B-class solar flares in the next few days, mainly from the upper-mentioned sunspot groups. 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. For H-alpha imagery, the equipment used are Lunt 60mm H-alpha solar telescope, and QHYCCD 290III mono camera; all mounted on Skywatcher EQ6 pro mount 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 (5:30 PM – 6:00 PM, August 12, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 41.07°C

Average Humidity: 29.67%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 26.97 kph from NNW

Average Cloud Cover: 40%

Average Air Pressure: 999.0 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 145.67 W/m^2

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