Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, January 10, 2018

The sky was mostly clear but experienced moderate to fresh winds 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. Gradual sunspot structure decay was observed in the lone visible sunspot group AR2693 (particularly the trailer spots vanished and shrinking header spot) as it remained relatively stable in magnetic configuration (now alpha/unipolar) and inactive. Meanwhile, the group of pores spotted near the central portion of the Sun’s disk (encircled) was found to have not developed into an active region and is expected to slowly disintegrate in the next few days.  No significant solar flare activity associated with these sunspot groups were recorded. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 12. Nothing much happening with the Sun lately aside from a tiny arch prominence seen at the western 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 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)