Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, March 24, 2021.
The sky was mostly clear with intermittent light breeze which provided good transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.
Both sunspot groups AR2811 (Bxi/beta) and AR2812 (Hsx/alpha) exhibited some slight growth on their respective sunspot structure but remained magnetically simple and still considered not a threat to any major flaring activity in the next few days. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 29. Solar activity has remained at very low levels with only a few weak B-class enhancements mainly from AR2811 were recorded by SIDC and NOAA-SWPC over the past 24 hours.
Other solar features observed were mostly small faint quiescent prominences mostly at the NE limb, few short stable filaments across the Sun’s disk, and the small enhanced plages associated with former AR2810, AR2811, and AR2812, 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 the upper-mentioned sunspot groups. 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 (4:30 PM – 5:00 PM, March 24, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 37.1°C
Average Humidity: 8.0%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 7.8 kph from N
Average Cloud Cover: 0%
Average Air Pressure: 999.33 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 331.33 W/m^2
