Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, February 26, 2021.
The sky was mostly clear to partly cloudy with intermittent moderate to fresh breeze which provided average transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.Â
AR2804 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Dsi/beta) is now exhibiting some slight decay in its intermediate and trailer sections while AR2805 (Axx/alpha) continuously decays into an enhanced plage. Both sunspot groups produced multiple weak B-class solar flares (including a B9.5 class flare from AR2805) over the past 24 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 28.
Other noteworthy solar features featured were some small quiescent (at the NE) and huge eruptive prominences (at the SW limb), short stable filaments mostly near AR2805, and the enhanced plages associated with the upper-mentioned active regions and former AR2803, as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to be at low levels with chances of solar flares of up to B-class (possibly up to C-class) intensity, mainly from the 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 (4:35 PM – 5:00 PM, February 26, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 23.33°C
Average Humidity: 47.0%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 23.73 kph from NNW
Average Cloud Cover: 35%
Average Air Pressure: 1004.1 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 265.67 W/m^2
