SUNSPOT MONITORING – DECEMBER 12, 2020

Here is today’s solar white-light image taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, December 12, 2020. No H-alpha images were taken due to obstruction of mid-level clouds.

The sky was partly cloudy (passing clouds from north) with intermittent moderate breeze which provided with average to poor seeing at the time these images were taken.

Solar activity was at very low levels over the past 24 hours. AR2790 (Hrx/alpha) has been gradually shrinking and remained quiet while approaching the southwestern limb. Another small enhanced region of faculae is about to rotate into Earth-view (encircled) at the southeastern limb, which was found to be from former AR2783 and exhibiting some weak B-class enhancements. No significant flaring activity was recorded. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 11. 

Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to be at very low levels with chances of solar flares from B-class up to C-class intensity, mainly from AR2790. 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 (5:00 PM, December 12, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 24.2°C

Average Humidity: 45%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 19.23 kph from NW

Average Cloud Cover: 45%

Average Air Pressure: 1006.6 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 50.0 W/m^2

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