Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, May 8, 2019.
The sky was clear with intermittent light to moderate winds which provided good transparency with average seeing at the time these images were taken.
The two visible sunspot groups AR2740 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Cso/beta) and AR2741 (Hsx/alpha) have eased down its activity a bit over the past 24 hours; only produced few isolated B-class to C-class solar flares (with a C1.0 class the most powerful one recorded). The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 23. Meanwhile, space weather agencies are also watching a potential developing tiny active region at far right (western section) of the Sun’s disk. H-alpha imagery captured some huge eruptive prominences at the limbs and revealed the distinct plage structures with some spewing filaments and recent still-frame flaring activity from AR2740 and AR2741.
Space weather agencies* forecast continuity of minor B-class to C-class (possibly isolated M-class) flaring activity mainly from the two visible sunspot regions. 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 (5:20 PM – 5:40 PM, May 8, 2019):
Average Temperature: 36.2°C
Average Humidity: 12%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 22.9 kph from NW
Average Cloud Cover: 0%
Average Air Pressure: 994.37 hpa
Average Solar Radiation: 156.65 W/m^2
Average UV Radiation: 246 µW/m^2 (low)
 
