SUNSPOT MONITORING – DECEMBER 26, 2020

No sunspot monitoring was issued yesterday, December 25, 2020, due to partly cloudy to cloudy condition prevailed that time, unable to get any solar images.

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, December 26, 2020.

The sky was partly cloudy with intermittent moderate breeze which provided average transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.

AR2794 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Hsx/alpha) exhibited slightt growth on its huge unipolar structure while AR2785 (Dao/beta) developed few more small intermediate spots and umbral growth on both leader and trailer spots. Both sunspot groups were currently inactive and no significant flaring activity was recorded throughout the monitoring period. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 28.

Other solar features observed were some huge eruptive prominences at the opposite (especially at the NE & SW) limbs, small scattered enhanced plages associated with AR2794 and AR2795, as well as some short stable filaments at the far northern section of the Sun’s disk, as 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 AR2794 and AR2785. 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 26, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 21.77°C

Average Humidity: 40.67%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 16.53 kph from NNW

Average Cloud Cover: 40%

Average Air Pressure: 1009.2 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 130 W/m^2

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Al Sadeem Astronomy is a privately-owned company registered in The Department of Economic Development in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) that aims to make astronomy accessible to everyone.