No sunspot monitoring was issued over the past 2 days (May 19-20, 2020) due to unfavorable weather condition.

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, May 21, 2020.

The sky was generally clear with intermittent moderate 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 2 days, extending to its 19th consecutive day. No significant flaring activity was recorded. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0.  Not much going on with the Sun lately except for a huge eruptive prominence at the northeastern limb, and remnant plages of the former active regions observed last March 17, as the only noteworthy 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 – 5:35 PM, May 21, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 38.03°C

Average Humidity: 19%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 23.83 kph from NNW

Average Cloud Cover: 0%

Average Air Pressure: 994.7hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 199.67 W/m^2