Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, December 15, 2018.
The sky was clear but with light to moderate winds making the seeing and transparency average at the time these images were taken.
The newly designated sunspot group AR2731 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: beta/Bxx) was generally inactive, with fleeting pores and absent of any significant flaring activity over the past 24 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 12. H-alpha imagery revealed some small plages associated with AR2731 (mid-eastern section) and former AR2730 (near-central portion), and few prominences at the limbs, mostly tiny quiescent ones and a huge eruptive one at the northwestern limb.
Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to remain at very low levels with chances of weak X-ray fluxes or flares ranging up to B-class (possibly up to isolated C-class) intensity,mainly from AR2731. The extent of the frequency and intensity of the Sun’s activity will highly depend on the magnetic flux fluctuations happening in the visible ARs in the coming 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 and Lunt H-alpha solar telescope and ZWO120MM CMOS camera for H-alpha imagery, mounted on Skywatcher EQ6 Pro. 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)
