Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, January 20, 2021.
The sky was generally clear with intermittent light to moderate breeze which provided good transparency but average seeing at the time these images were taken.Â
The lone visible sunspot group AR2797 (Cao/beta) exhibited further gradual growth especially on its trailer over the past 24 hours. Several minor B-class and one C1.0-class solar flare originated from this sunspot group were recorded by space weather agencies throughout the 24-hour monitoring period. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 19.Â
Other solar features observed were several minor plasma ejections through the presence of a few small faint quiescent and some huge eruptive prominences (at the SW section) at the limbs, few short stable filaments at the far southern hemisphere, and the weak solar plage enhancements at trailer section of AR2797 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 isolated C-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 20, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 26.47°C
Average Humidity: 30.33%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 16.23 kph from NW
Average Cloud Cover: 0%
Average Air Pressure: 1006.3 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 173.67 W/m^2
