SUNSPOT MONITORING – DECEMBER 16, 2020

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, December 16, 2020.

The sky was mostly clear (with few passing cirrus) with intermittent light breeze which provided average transparency but good seeing at the time these images were taken.

Solar activity has returned to very low levels over the past 24 hours. AR2792 has completely decayed into plage. On the other hand, AR2793 (Bxo/beta) exhibited umbral growth of its bipolar spots. Few weak B-class solar flares were recorded by space agencies from this sunspot group over the past 24 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 12. Numerous huge eruptive prominences at the limbs, small enhanced plages associated with former AR2792, and AR2783; as well some short stable filaments across the Sun’s disk were distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.

Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to be at very low levels with chances of solar flares of B-class (possibly isolated C-class) intensity, mainly from upper-mentioned sunspot groups. 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 (4:30 PM – 5:00 PM, December 16, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 27.13°C

Average Humidity: 26.67%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 4.1 kph from E

Average Cloud Cover: 15%

Average Air Pressure: 1008.77 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 115.67 W/m^2

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