Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, August 2, 2021.
The sky was mostly clear with light to moderate breeze which provided good transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.
Solar activity has remained at very low levels over the past 48 hours. A new small bipolar sunspot group emerged at the far-southwestern section of the Sun’s disk and was recently designated as AR2850 (Bxo/beta). No significant flaring activity was recorded throughout the monitoring period. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 12.
Enhanced plages associated with AR2850 and former AR2846, several elongated shallow filaments mostly at the southeastern quadrant, and some huge eruptive prominences mainly at NW and SW limbs were distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* forecast very low solar activity with chances of B-class to C-class solar flares in the next few days, mainly from AR2850. 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 2, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 37.47°C
Average Humidity: 49.0%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 13.57 kph from NW
Average Cloud Cover: 5%
Average Air Pressure: 996.0 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 172.67 W/m^2
