SUNSPOT MONITORING – OCTOBER 15, 2021

Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, October 15, 2021.

The sky was clear with light breeze which provided good transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.

Solar activity is at very low levels over the past 24 hours. The lone visible large sunspot group AR2882 (Hhx/beta) became magnetically simple and stable following the decay of its tiny companion spots. On the other hand, AR2885 has completely decayed and departed from Earth-view. No significant flaring activity was recorded throughout the monitoring period. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 11.

Other solar features observed were some small quiescent prominences at the limbs, the enhanced disintegrating plages associated with AR2882, as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.

Space weather agencies* expect a further decrease in solar activity, particularly maintaining very low to low solar activity levels, with the likelihood of flaring activities up to C-class intensity in the next few days, mainly from AR2882. 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 (9:00 AM – 9:30 AM, October 15, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):

Average Temperature: 31.53°C

Average Humidity: 53.67%

Average Wind Speed and Direction: 3.0 kph from various directions

Average Cloud Cover: 0%

Average Air Pressure: 1010.0 hPa

Average Solar Radiation: 496.0 W/m^2

P.S. Due to proposed changes in the priorities regarding the observatory’s activities moving forward, we will no longer continue publishing sunspot monitoring posts on the website from now on. For the latest solar bulletins, please check solarham.netSIDCspaceweatherlive.com, etc. Thank you very much and Clear skies.

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