Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, December 17, 2017.

The sky was partly cloudy with slight to moderate air turbulence making the seeing and transparency poor at the time these images were taken.

Solar activity remains at very low levels over the past 24 hours. No sunspot groups were visible at the Sun indicating its relatively quiet state without any significant solar flaring recorded at this moment. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0. Some huge relatively stable eruptive filaments were captured in H-alpha imagery. Particularly, the large filament in the southeastern portion could have an Earth-component effect and will be closely watched in the coming few days as it rotates further towards direct Earth-view.

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 intensity. 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.

*Technical reports courtesy of Solar Influence Data Center (SIDC), NOAA-Space Weather Prediction Center (NOAA-SWPC)