Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, March 7, 2019.

The sky was clear but with intermittent light to moderate winds which provided excellent seeing but average seeing at the time these images were taken.

The lone visible sunspot group AR2734 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh spot configuration: Cro/beta) experienced slight growth on its header and coverage area expansion on its trailer but still classified as stable and generally quiet in activity, despite producing several minor A-class and B-class solar flares over the past 24 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 17.  H-alpha imagery revealed numerous tiny quiescent prominences at the limbs and few plages including the one associated with AR2734 in the northern hemisphere and another crackling one at the southern hemisphere.

Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to remain at low levels with chances of weak X-ray fluxes or flares ranging up to B-class intensity (mainly from AR2734). The extent of the frequency and intensity of the Sun’s activity will highly depend on the magnetic flux fluctuations happening in the visible ARs in the coming days. 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 ZWO120MM CMOS 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 (4:45PM – 5:30PM, March 7, 2019):

Average Temperature: 24.7°C

Average Humidity: 33.8%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 27.22 kph from N

Average Cloud Cover: 0%

Average Air Pressure: 1002.4 hpa

Average Solar Radiation: 149.3W/m^2

Average UV Radiation: 275.4 µW/m^2 (low)