SUNSPOT MONITORING – MARCH 12, 2020

The sky was mostly cloudy (imaged through a brief sky window) with intermittent light to moderate winds which average to poor seeing and transparency at the time these images were taken.

Here is today’s white-light imagery taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, March 12, 2020.

The Sun remains in its spotless and generally quiet state on its 2nd consecutive day. No significant flaring activity was recorded. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0.

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. 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, 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 (4:55 PM – 5:15 PM, March 12, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 28.95°C

Average Humidity: 12%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 15.85 kph from NNW

Average Cloud Cover: 85%

Average Air Pressure: 1005.85 hpa

Average Solar Radiation: 268 W/m^2

Average UV Radiation: — µW/m^2 (low)

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