Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, May 18, 2020.
The sky was generally clear with intermittent moderate to fresh winds which provided good transparency but average to poor seeing at the time these images were taken.
The Sun remained spotless and generally inactive over the past 48hours, extending to its 16th consecutive day. The “active regions” rotated into Earth-view from the eastern side of the Sun’s disk yesterday, May 17, 2020, were just small enhanced plages and exhibiting no spots. No significant flaring activity was recorded. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0. Few huge eruptive prominences at the opposite (northeastern and southwestern) limbs were the other solar features 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 (5:20 PM – 5:40 PM, May 18, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 39°C
Average Humidity: 12.33%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 29.27 kph from NNE
Average Cloud Cover: 0%
Average Air Pressure: 994.77 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 206.67 W/m^2
