Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, March 13, 2021.
The sky was slightly hazy to partly cloudy (with upper-level dust) with intermittent moderate breeze which provided average transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.Â
Very low solar activity has persisted over the past 24 hours. The lone visible sunspot group AR2808 (Cro/beta) continues to experience gradual decay of its structure, particularly its trailer, and slight shrinkage in its leader spots; generally dormant. On the other hand, AR2809 (Axx/alpha) has completely disintegrated into an enhanced plage. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 12. Few weak B-class flaring activities from AR2808 were recorded by SIDC and NOAA-SWPC.
Nothing much significantly going on with the Sun lately aside from some small enhanced plages associated with AR2808, remnants of AR2809, and another undeveloped one at the southeastern quadrant, as well as few small quiescent prominences at the limbs, as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to be at very low levels with chances of solar flares of up to B-class intensity mainly from AR2808. 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 (4:35 PM – 5:05 PM, March 13, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 28.87°C
Average Humidity: 40.0%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 21.97 kph from WNW
Average Cloud Cover: 30%
Average Air Pressure: 1001.43 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 243.0 W/m^2
