Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, May 5, 2019.
The sky was clear with light air turbulence which provided excellent seeing and transparency at the time these images were taken.
The lone visible sunspot group AR2740 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Hhx/alpha) continues to unleash several B-class and C-class flaring activity (with C-2.0 intensity the most significant one recorded) over the past 24 hours. It was also the source of a narrow back-side (non-Earth-directed) coronal mass ejection (CME) observed last May 3, 2019. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 12. Many huge eruptive prominence activities at the limbs were evident also as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* forecast generally low solar activity to continue with a gradual increase of solar flare production ranging up from B-class to C-class intensity mainly from AR2740. 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 (8:00 AM – 8:20 AM, May 5, 2019):
Average Temperature: 28.9°C
Average Humidity: 59.5%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 4.15 kph from S
Average Cloud Cover: 0%
Average Air Pressure: 1002.7 hpa
Average Solar Radiation: 421.925 W/m^2
Average UV Radiation: 770 µW/m^2 (moderate)
