Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, October 31, 2020.
The sky was generally clear with a slight haze near the horizon and intermittent light to moderate breeze which provided average transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.
Both AR2778 (Modified Zurich/Mcintosh sunspot configuration: Cao/beta) and AR2779 (Bxo/beta) continue to experience gradual decay in its respective sunspot structures and magnetic complexity over the past 24 hours while approaching the southwestern limb. No significant flaring activity was recorded. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 24. Space weather agencies detected two other active regions from northeastern and southeastern limbs (barely seen in today’s images) are about to rotate into Earth-view within the next 24 hours. The decaying plages associated with the upper-mentioned sunspot groups, together with few small quiescent prominences at the limbs and some short stable filaments at the far northern hemisphere were distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to be at low levels with chances of B-class to C-class solar flare intensity, mainly from the receding AR2778 and AR2279. 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, October 31, 2020, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 35.37°C
Average Humidity: 6.0%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 6.37 kph from NE
Average Cloud Cover: 0%
Average Air Pressure: 1004.33 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 235 W/m^2
