SUNSPOT MONITORING – JUNE 17, 2021

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, June 17, 2021.

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

The lone visible sunspot group AR2833 (Hsx/alpha) exhibited very little to no noticeable change in its large unipolar sunspot structure, with an addition of a small pore above it. It is currently quiet with no significant flaring activity recorded over the past 24 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 12. 

Enhanced plages at the southern section of AR2833, some eruptive plasma ejections activities (filaments) across the Sun’s disk, especially beside AR2833, and some huge eruptive prominences especially at the NW and NE limbs, were the other noteworthy solar features distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.

Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to remain at very low levels with chances of solar flares of mostly B-class to possibly isolated C-class intensity, mainly from AR2833 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, June 17, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 34.43°C

Average Humidity: 49.67%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 26.53 kph from WNW

Average Cloud Cover: 0%

Average Air Pressure: 988.33 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 150.0 W/m^2

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