Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, March 16, 2021.
The sky was mostly hazy to partly cloudy (with upper-level dust) with intermittent light breeze which provided good seeing but average to poor transparency at the time these images were taken.Â
Very low solar activity has prevailed over the past 24 hours. The lone visible sunspot group AR2808 (Axx/alpha) continues to experience gradual decay of its structure, leaving only its shrinking leader spot. On the other hand, AR2809 and the other small sunspot group detected yesterday have both completely disintegrated into an enhanced plage. Meanwhile, another small sunspot group has recently rotated into Earth-view from the NE limb and has been designated as AR2810 (named previously as AR2804; Axx/alpha). The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 22.  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, AR2810, and remnants of former AR2809, as well as a huge eruptive prominence at the NE limb, 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 16, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 34.9°C
Average Humidity: 7.0%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 21.97 kph from WNW
Average Cloud Cover: 60%
Average Air Pressure: 1001.5 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 212.33 W/m^2
