Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, March 1, 2021.
The sky was partly to mostly cloudy (imaged through short clouds breaks) with intermittent light breeze which provided average to poor transparency but good seeing at the time these images were taken.
AR2804 has already departed from Earth-view; already behind the northwestern limb. Meanwhile, a new small sunspot group is seen emerging at the Sun’s southern hemisphere; currently exhibiting a simple unipolar magnetic configuration (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Axx/alpha). Once it sustains its structure in the next 24 hours, it shall be designated AR2806. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 11.
Nothing much significant going on with the Sun lately except for a huge eruptive prominence at the Sun’s southwestern limb as the only other noteworthy solar feature observed, as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to be at low levels with chances of solar flares of up to B-class intensity, mainly from the new AR2806. 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 (4:40 PM – 5:05 PM, March 1, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 31.0°C
Average Humidity: 11.5%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 5.05 kph from NNW
Average Cloud Cover: 80%
Average Air Pressure: 1003.7 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 231.5 W/m^2
