Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, January 18, 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.Â
AR2796 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Axx/alpha) has further decayed in structure (barely visible in white-light imagery) and exhibited few B-class solar enhancements over the past 48 hours. On the other hand, former AR2794, now designated as AR2797 (Hao/beta) has recently rotated into Earth-view and currently inactive. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 25.Â
Nothing much going on with the Sun lately aside from several minor plasma ejections through the presence of some small faint quiescent prominences at the limbs, few short stable mound filaments at the far southern hemisphere, and the small enhanced plages associated with the upper-mentioned sunspot groups as the other noteworthy solar features 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 intensity, mainly from AR2797. 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 18, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 29.0°C
Average Humidity: 15.33%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 11.63 kph from NNW
Average Cloud Cover: 0%
Average Air Pressure: 1005.0 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 166.33 W/m^2
