Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, July 1, 2019.

The sky was clear but with moderate winds which provided average seeing and transparency at the time these images were taken.

Solar activity remains at very low levels over the past 24 hours. The Sun is spotless in the visible imagery but a tiny enhanced plage was seen struggling to develop situated in the encircled location as clearly seen in H-alpha imagery. No significant flaring activity was recorded. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0.  Other solar features observed were some prominence activity (most quiescent ones with a huge eruptive one at the northwestern limb), as well as few scattered stable plages across the Sun’s disk.

Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to remain at very low levels with chances of weak X-ray fluxes or flares ranging up to B-class intensity. 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 (5:45 PM – 6:05 PM, July 1, 2019):

Average Temperature: 40.8°C

Average Humidity: 25%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 26.3 kph from NW

Average Cloud Cover: 0%

Average Air Pressure: 985.9 hpa

Average Solar Radiation: 133.405 W/m^2

Average UV Radiation: 45 µW/m^2 (low)