Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, August 9, 2021.
The sky was partly cloudy (mostly high cirrus clouds) 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. The Sun is still spotless for the 4th consecutive day. The small enhanced plage (still spotless) near the NE limb (encircled, designated as SIDC Catania sunspot group 29) produced some weak solar flares over the past 48 hours, including a C1.3 class solar flare recorded earlier this morning, as per recent space weather agency reports. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0.
Some moderately huge eruptive prominences mainly at NW and SW limbs 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. 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 9, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 46.63°C
Average Humidity: 12.0%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 14.3 kph from various directions
Average Cloud Cover: 55%
Average Air Pressure: 998.0 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 142.0 W/m^2
