No sunspot monitoring issued over the past few days (January 22-24, 2021) due to unfavorable (dusty) weather condition prevailed on those dates.
Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, January 25, 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
Over the past few days, there were few feature changes observed in the Sun while solar activity has remained in its low levels. First, AR2798 has completely decayed into plage. Second, the leader spots of AR2797 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Hax/alpha) has separated into two individual small spots but it has been inactive. Lastly, AR2799 (Bxo/beta) has been the primary source of recent minor B-class solar flare activities over the past 24 hours and has been exhibiting some flux emergence and further development of small spots at its trailer, while it approaches the northwestern limb. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 24.Â
Other solar features observed were several minor plasma ejections through the presence of a few small quiescent prominences particularly at the limbs, an elongated stable filament at the far northern hemisphere, few short ones near AR2797, and the enhanced plages associated with AR2799, AR2797, and an undeveloped region at the northeastern quadrant as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity gradual decrease in solar activity but still within low levels with chances of solar flares of up to B-class (possibly isolated C-class) intensity, mainly from AR2797 and AR2799. 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 25, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 23.67°C
Average Humidity: 53.67%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 18.13 kph from NNW
Average Cloud Cover: 0%
Average Air Pressure: 1008.4 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 176.0 W/m^2
