SUNSPOT MONITORING – JULY 3, 2021

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, July 3, 2021.

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

Solar activity has reached moderate levels over the past 24 hours. The large sunspot group AR2835 (Dkc/beta-gamma) exhibited slight growth in its leader spot and coverage area and produced only a few minor B-class solar enhancements. Meanwhile, continuous decay persists in both smaller sunspot groups AR2836 (Axx/alpha) and AR2837 (Bxo/beta).

The most significant solar activity recorded throughout the monitoring period was the M2.7-class (this morning) and X1.5-class (this afternoon) solar flares from the newly designated sunspot group AR2838 (Dao/beta) which rapidly developed at the NW limb. The expected effects of these strong flares with any associated CMEs will be non-geoeffective (directly away from Earth).

The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 65. 

Other noteworthy solar features observed were enhanced plages associated with the upper-mentioned sunspot groups, as well as several short, stable, and elongated eruptive filaments across the Sun’s disk, and mostly small quiescent prominences at the NW and SW limbs as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.

Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to be at low levels with chances of solar flares of mostly B-class to C-class (possibly up to isolated M-class) intensity, mainly from the upper mentioned sunspot groups in the next few 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. 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 (5:30 PM – 6:00 PM, July 2, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 42.0°C

Average Humidity: 27.67%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 20.17 kph from NNW

Average Cloud Cover: 10%

Average Air Pressure: 986.0 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 148.0 W/m^2

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