• The SSRT is a
crossed interferometer operating at 5.2 cm wavelength and comprising
256 antennas 2.5 m in diameter each, arranged in the form of 128 antennas
at 4.9 m intervals along the north-south and east-west directions (Fig. 1).
The SSRT’s field of view is on the order of 90 min of arc. Some redundancy
of the number of antenna elements was admitted in order to achieve
higher sensitivity, good quality of the spectrum of spatial frequencies, and to
simplify the phasing problem and the baseline for a further development of
the instrument. Sequential-continuous recording of the radio brightness distribution
of the solar corona is carried out through parallel multichannel reception of emission during the Sun’s
transit through diffraction maxima (occupying the sky) using the
frequency-dependence of the beam orientation (“scanning” in
declination in the frequency band 112 MHz,
Fig. 2) and rotation of Earth (scanning in the hour
angle). The frequency band that is required for collecting signals from the
antennas via the branched parallel-cascaded waveguide system, was 120 MHz. The initial signal frequency is converted
twice. Parallel recording is carried out via 180 channels of 500 kHz width. All
this provides solar radio images every several minutes (see examples
in Figs. 3 and 4). Simultaneous records are taken of the responses of one-dimensional
arrays of the instrument which are used to study fast processes
during flares with a time resolution of 14 ms. Main SSRT parameters
are presented in Table 1.
•