Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, January 15, 2021.
The sky was mostly clear with intermittent light to moderate breeze which provided good transparency but average seeing at the time these images were taken.
A new small bipolar sunspot group has emerged at the central portion of the Sun’s disk (encircled; to be designated as AR2796; Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Bxo/beta). No significant flaring activity was recorded throughout the monitoring period. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 13.
Nothing much going on with the Sun lately aside from few plasma ejections through the presence of some small faint quiescent prominences at the limbs, and few short stable mound filaments at the far southern hemisphere as the other noteworthy solar features distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to remain at very low levels with chances of solar flares of up to B-class intensity. 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, January 15, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 23.03°C
Average Humidity: 44.67%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 15.03 kph from NNW
Average Cloud Cover: 5%
Average Air Pressure: 1004.97 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 155 W/m^2
