Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, May 16, 2020.
The sky was generally clear with intermittent moderate to fresh winds which provided good transparency but average seeing at the time these images were taken.
The Sun remained spotless and generally inactive over the past 24 hours, extending to its 14th consecutive day. No significant flaring activity was recorded. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0. Space weather agencies are reporting a new active region (belonging to solar cycle 25) about to rotate into Earth-view from the northeastern limb which will be closely monitored in the next few days. Not much significant activities going on with the Sun lately aside from mostly tiny quiescent prominences at the limbs with the exception of a huge eruptive one at the southeastern limb, as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
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. 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 QHYCCDIII mono 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 (5:25 PM – 5:45 PM, May 16, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 37.05°C
Average Humidity: 26.5%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 28.6 kph from NNW
Average Cloud Cover: 0%
Average Air Pressure: 995.5hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 177 W/m^2
