Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, January 30, 2019.
The sky was mostly clear with few passing cirrus clouds and moderate air turbulence which provided average seeing and transparency at the time these images were taken.
Further sunspot decay was observed in the departing sunspot group AR2733 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: /beta). Several minor B-class and few isolated C-class (strongest was C5.2 occurred at 6:11 UTC) solar flares were recorded by space weather agencies associated with this sunspot group throughout the 24-hour monitoring period. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 13. Other distinct solar features some prominences, including some small quiescent ones and a huge eruptive one at the northwestern limb as captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to range between very low to low with chances of weak X-ray fluxes or flares ranging up to B-class (possibly isolated C-class) intensity, mainly from the departing AR2733. 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.
Equipment used are Skywatcher 120mm refractor telescope with Baader filter and unmodified Canon EOS 1D Mark IV DSLR camera for visible imagery and Lunt H-alpha solar telescope and ZWO120MM CMOS camera for H-alpha imagery, mounted on Skywatcher EQ6 Pro. 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 (4:15PM – 5:15PM, January 30, 2019):
Average Temperature: 25.2C
Average Humidity: 57.6%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 4kph N
Average Cloud Cover: 20%
Average Air Pressure: 1006.7 hpa
Average Light: 171.996 W/m^2
Average UV Radiation: 275.4 µW/m^2 (low)
