Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, May 10, 2019.

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

AR2740 has been seen gradually shrinking on its leader spot and decaying on its trailer while it continues to produce minor solar flares (C6.0 class – the most powerful one recorded) over the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, AR2741 (Hhx/alpha) has its structure unchanged and was quiet. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 24.  H-alpha imagery revealed the well-defined scattered plage structures with elongated plasma ejections (filaments) associated with AR2740 and AR2741, as well a huge eruptive prominence at the northwestern limb.

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. 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 (5:15 PM – 5:40 PM, May 10, 2019):

Average Temperature: 38°C

Average Humidity: 11%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 35.1 kph from N

Average Cloud Cover: 0%

Average Air Pressure: 995.87 hpa

Average Solar Radiation: 163.6933 W/m^2

Average UV Radiation: 99 µW/m^2 (low)