Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, September 9, 2021.
The sky was partly cloudy with slight haze and moderate breeze which provided average to poor transparency and seeing at the time these images were taken.
AR2863 (Hsx/alpha) has not changed much in structure appearance and remained quiet.
Some re-development of few tiny spots was observed in AR2864 (Cro/beta) but also remained dormant.
AR2868 (Dsi/beta) manifested some slight shrinkage of its intermediate and trailer spots, as well as the leader spot’s penumbra; produced a C2.0-class solar flare yesterday afternoon.
AR2869 (Bxo/beta) has remained relatively stable and inactive with no significant flaring activity produced at the moment.
Another small developing active region has just rotated into Earth-view from the far SE limb (encircled; undesignated as of capture and time).
The largest among the 6, AR2866 (Dkc/beta) exhibited some consolidation and slight growth of its sunspot structure which in turn lost a few tiny pores at the trailer. It produced the most C-class solar flare activities throughout the monitoring period; peaked with a C8.0-class solar flare recorded early yesterday evening.
The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 90.
Other solar features observed were scattered enhanced plages along the trailer section associated with the upper-mentioned sunspot groups, some short stable filaments near the active regions and the northern hemisphere, and small faint quiescent prominences at the SW and NE limbs, as distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.
Space weather agencies* expect low solar activity to persist with more likelihood of B-class to C-class (possibly up to isolated M-class) solar flares in the next few 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. 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 (5:00 PM – 5:30 PM, September 9, 2021, from NCM Al Wathba Station):
Average Temperature: 37.63°C
Average Humidity: 48.67%
Average Wind Speed and Direction: 21.47 kph from NNW
Average Cloud Cover: 65%
Average Air Pressure: 999.0 hPa
Average Solar Radiation: 54.67 W/m^2
