SUNSPOT MONITORING – MARCH 27, 2021

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, March 27, 2021.

The sky was mostly clear with intermittent light breeze which provided good transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken. 

Gradual spot decay is still evident in AR2811 (Bxo/beta), particularly the disintegration of its leader and intermediate spots. On the other hand, AR2812 (Hax/alpha) exhibited very little to no noticeable change in its lone leader spot. Both sunspot groups remained magnetically simple. Only a few B-class solar enhancements from the mentioned sunspot groups were recorded over the past 24 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 23. 

Other solar features observed were few short mound filaments across the Sun’s disk especially near the NW and SE limbs, and the small enhanced plages associated with AR2811, AR2812, and another one just rotated into Earth-view from SE 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 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 27, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 39.7°C

Average Humidity: 7.0%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 7.8 kph from southwesterly direction

Average Cloud Cover: 0%

Average Air Pressure: 1000.7 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 356.67 W/m^2

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