Abstract Observation and research on solar radio emission have unique scientific values in solar and space physics and related space weather forecasting applications, since the observed spectral structures may carry important information about energetic electrons and underlying physical mechanisms. In this study, we present the design of a novel dynamic spectrograph that has been installed at the Chashan Solar Radio Observatory operated by the Laboratory for Radio Technologies, Institute of Space Sciences at Shandong University. The spectrograph is characterized by real-time storage of digitized radio intensity data in the time domain and its capability to perform off-line spectral analysis of the radio spectra. The analog signals received via antennas and amplified with a low-noise amplifier are converted into digital data at a speed reaching up to 32 k data points per millisecond. The digital data are then saved into a high-speed electronic disk for further off-line spectral analysis. Using different word lengths (1–32 k) and time cadences (5 ms–10 s) for off-line fast Fourier transform analysis, we can obtain the dynamic spectrum of a radio burst with different (user-defined) temporal (5 ms–10 s) and spectral (3 kHz∼320 kHz) resolutions. This enables great flexibility and convenience in data analysis of solar radio bursts, especially when some specific fine spectral structures are under study.
Keywords Sun: radio radiation — radiation: dynamics — instrumentation: spectrographs — methods: data analysis — techniques: image processing
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