The CALLISTO Observation Station at Arthur C Clarke Institute, Sri Lanka
The CALLISTO Solar Radio Observatory is established in ACCIMT, Colombo, Sri Lanka. The location of the CALLISTO system is 6o 47’ 37’’ N, 79o 53’ 53’’ E at an altitude of 40 m and the time zone is +5.30 from UT. The log-periodic antenna was completely designed by the ACCIMT and constructed locally. Design constant (t) 0.822 and the relative spacing (s) 0.149 give 7 dBi theoretical gain for the log – periodic antenna and it covers the frequency range of 45 – 600 MHz with 18 dipoles. The theoretical impedance of the antenna 58.3 Ω is well agreed with the impedance measured in the entire frequency range. The total height of the antenna is 5.38 m and the longest dipole is 3.33 m. The linear polarized antenna is pointing to zenith and the dipoles directed to north-south direction.
CALLISTO stands for compound astronomical low cost low frequency instrument for spectroscopy and transportable observatory. It is a programmable heterodyne receiver built in the framework of IHY2007 and ISWI (International Space Weather Initiative) by former Radio and Plasma Physics Group at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Generally, this is applicable for observation of solar radio bursts and rfi – monitoring for astronomical science, education and outreach.
e-CALLISTO is a world wide network consist of identical radio spectrometers which is operating in 24 hours to detect solar radio bursts originating from solar flares. There are more than 150 instruments at more than 90 locations worldwide. Visit for more information : http://www.e-callisto.org/
Team members : J. Adassuriya, S. Gunasekara, I. Madegangoda, C. Monstein (Switzerland)