SUNSPOT MONITORING – MARCH 2, 2020

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, March 2, 2020.

The sky was slightly hazy with intermittent moderate winds which provided average seeing and transparency at the time these images were taken.

Solar activity remains generally spotless and inactive today, extending its spotless day streak to 29 days. No significant flaring activity was recorded. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0.  Despite the absence of any visible sunspot groups, the Sun exhibited several plasma ejection activities through the presence of a huge elongated filament at the northeastern quadrant and multiple huge eruptive prominences, particularly the ones at the northwestern and southwestern limbs, as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.

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 2, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 29.9°C

Average Humidity: 21.5%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 24.1 kph from NNW

Average Cloud Cover: 0%

Average Air Pressure: 1003.0 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 163.5 W/m^2

Average UV Radiation: — µW/m^2

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