Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, May 8, 2018.

The sky was clear with little air turbulence making the seeing and transparency good at the time these images were taken.

The lone visible sunspot group AR2708 has decayed much over the past 24 hours, barely seen in visible spectrum imagery, but distinct in H-alpha imagery. On the other hand, a new sunspot group (encircled) has further rotated into Earth-view from the eastern limb and is expected to be designated by space weather agencies as AR2709 in the next couple of hours. No significant flaring activity associated with both sunspot groups was recorded at the moment.  The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 14. Few plages associated with both active regions and few small prominences at the limbs were 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. 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.

*Technical reports courtesy of Solar Influence Data Center (SIDC), NOAA-Space Weather Prediction Center (NOAA-SWPC)