SUNSPOT MONITORING – NOVEMBER 21, 2020

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

The sky was generally clear with calm breeze which provided excellent transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.

AR2783 (Hsx/alpha) experienced minuscule to no change in the structure of its leader spot. It produced a minor C-class solar flare over the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, a new developing bipolar active region was spotted at the northeastern quadrant (encircled). Furthermore, space weather agencies also noted few moderately strong magnetic activities associated with the few other active regions currently behind the southeastern limb (not seen in the images). The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 25.

The Sun exhibited few moderately huge eruptive prominences at the opposite (northeastern and northwestern) limbs, as well as the well-defined scattered plages of AR2783, the new developing active region, and former AR2782 approaching the southwestern limb, as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.

Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to be at very low levels with chances of solar flares of B-class to C-class (possibly up to isolated M-class) intensity, mainly from the upper-mentioned sunspot groups. 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 QHYCCD290III 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 (4:30 PM – 5:00 PM, November 21, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 30.53°C

Average Humidity: 27.67%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 2.3 kph from various directions

Average Cloud Cover: 0%

Average Air Pressure: 1005.13 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 87.33 W/m^2

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