SUNSPOT MONITORING – AUGUST 26, 2020

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, August 26, 2020.

The sky was mostly covered with high-level cirrus clouds (from a dissipating thunderstorm cloud) with intermittent light to moderate breeze which provided average transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.

The Sun remains spotless and generally inactive for its 5th consecutive day. No significant flaring activity was recorded over the past 24 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0. Nothing much significant going on with the Sun lately except for a huge eruptive prominence at the northeastern limb and a small plage also at the same section 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 – 6:00 PM, August 26, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 37.57°C

Average Humidity: 48.67%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 20.03 kph from NNW

Average Cloud Cover: 85%

Average Air Pressure: 988.03 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 114 W/m^2

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