Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, June 18, 2020.
The sky was partly covered with cirrus clouds with intermittent light to moderate winds which provided average transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.
The Sun is currently spotless and generally inactive over the past 24 hours for its 4th consecutive day. No significant flaring activity was recorded. Meanwhile, a small plage section has recently rotated into Earth-view from the eastern section but does not exhibit any distinct spots. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0. Despite the absence of any visible sunspot groups, The Sun exhibited few huge eruptive prominences at the (northeastern and southwestern) limbs and short stable filaments at the far northern hemisphere as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to remain at very low levels with chances of weak X-ray fluxes or flares up to B-class intensity. 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 QHYCCDIII mono 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 (5:35 PM – 5:55 PM, June 18, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 37.73°C
Average Humidity: 36.33%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 18.6 kph from WNW
Average Cloud Cover: 40%
Average Air Pressure: 986.83 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 188 W/m^2