SUNSPOT MONITORING – MAY 28, 2021

No sunspot monitoring post was issued yesterday, May 28, 2021, due to poor seeing conditions brought by fresh winds and dust in our area at the proposed observation time.

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, May 28, 2021.

The sky was mostly clear with moderate to fresh breeze which provided good transparency but average seeing at the time these images were taken. 

Both have grown further in size of their respective sunspot structures, huge sunspot groups AR2824 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Dho/beta) and AR2826 (Dko/beta) continue to produce several weak B-class and C-class solar flares as recorded by space weather agencies over the past 48 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 27.

Enhanced plages associated with the upper-mentioned sunspot groups, few faint small quiescent prominences at the limbs, as well as few short stable ones mostly along the extreme southern hemisphere, were the other noteworthy solar features distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.

Space weather agencies* forecast a further decline in solar activity with chances of solar flares of mostly B-class to C-class intensity, in the next few days as AR2824 and AR2826 depart from Earth-view at the NW limb. 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. For H-alpha imagery, the equipment used are Lunt 60mm H-alpha solar telescope, and QHYCCD 290III mono camera; all mounted on Skywatcher EQ6 pro mount 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 28, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 38.27°C

Average Humidity: 30.0%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 25.8 kph from WNW

Average Cloud Cover: 0%

Average Air Pressure: 992.47 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 223.33 W/m^2

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