Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, May 17, 2019.
The sky was mostly cloudy with intermittent light to moderate winds which provided average to poor seeing and transparency making the seeing and transparency good at the time these images were taken.
The lone visible sunspot groups AR2741 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Hax/alpha) retained its stable leader spot structure though shrinking gradually and has produced several weak B-class solar flares over the past 24 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 12. Numerous plasma ejections including the huge eruptive prominences at the western limb, as well as the disintegrating plages with a stable elongated filament within AR2741 were distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* expect a further decline in solar activity with chances of solar flares ranging up to B-class (possibly up to isolated C-class) intensity, mainly from AR2741. 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 – 5:35 PM, May 17, 2019):
Average Temperature: 36.6°C
Average Humidity: 27%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 28.25 kph from NNW
Average Cloud Cover: 85%
Average Air Pressure: 994.7 hpa
Average Solar Radiation: 160.765 W/m^2
Average UV Radiation: 99 µW/m^2 (low)
