No sunspot monitoring posts were issued from March 13 – 15, 2020, due to unfavorable weather conditions.

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, March 16, 2020.

The sky was generally clear but with intermittent moderate winds which provided good transparency but average seeing at the time these images were taken.

The Sun remains in its spotless and generally inactive over the past few days. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0.  A couple of moderately huge quiescent prominences at the opposite (northeastern and southwestern) limbs were distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery as the only noteworthy solar features visible at the time.

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 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 (4:55 PM – 5:15 PM, March 16, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 31.25°C

Average Humidity: 26.5%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 6.15 kph from a relatively easterly direction

Average Cloud Cover: 0%

Average Air Pressure: 1003.2 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 2095 W/m^2