Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, August 17, 2020.

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

The Sun has remained spotless and relatively quiet over the past hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0. Space weather agencies reported a minor B-class solar flare from former AR2771 and a non-Earth directed CME from a back-side active region (not seen) yesterday, August 16, 2020.

Despite the absence of any designated sunspot groups, few small enhanced plages including the remnants of former AR2771 at the far southern hemisphere, together with moderate huge quiescent prominences at the limbs were distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.

Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to be at very low levels with chances of weak X-ray fluxes or flares up to B-class intensity. 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 QHYCCD290III 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 (5:35 PM – 5:55 PM, August 17, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 40.1°C

Average Humidity: 27.67%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 21.97 kph from WNW

Average Cloud Cover: 55%

Average Air Pressure: 984.87 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 162.33 W/m^2