Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, May 14, 2019.

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

AR2740 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Cxx/alpha) has decayed further, leaving its shrinking leader spot behind while AR2741 (Hkx/alpha) has its main sunspot dissected into three lobes. Both sunspot groups were current inactive, absent of any significant flaring activity. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 24.  Space weather agencies reported few Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and filament ejection erupted from with AR2741 to affect on Earth, expected to bring weak to moderate geomagnetic storms, producing minor radio telecommunication disruptions and aurora at the polar regions in the next few days. Few huge eruptive prominences, including the hedgerow one at the northwestern limb, as well as the well-defined plages with stable filaments near the mentioned sunspot regions were distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.

Space weather agencies* forecast continuity of decreasing solar activity with chances of solar flares ranging between B-class to C-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 14, 2019):

Average Temperature: 36.4°C

Average Humidity: 12.3%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 23.2 kph from NW

Average Cloud Cover: 10%

Average Air Pressure: 995.3 hpa

Average Solar Radiation: 164.80 W/m^2

Average UV Radiation: 246 µW/m^2 (low)