Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, August 18, 2020.
The sky was partly cloudy with intermittent light to moderate breeze (from a passing dissipating thunderstorm cloud) which provided average transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.
A new bipolar active region is emerging at the encircled location (to be designated as AR2772 within the next 24 hours). No significant flaring activity was recorded over the past 24 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 15. Few small enhanced plages including the decaying remnants of former AR2771 at the far southern hemisphere, together with some moderately huge eruptive prominences at the opposite (northwestern and southeastern) 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, mainly from the new active region. 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 – 6:00 PM, August 18, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 39.53°C
Average Humidity: 40.33%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 20.4 kph from NNW
Average Cloud Cover: 70%
Average Air Pressure: 984.37hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 178.0 W/m^2
