Interferometric observation of Cygnus-А discrete radiosource scintillations at Irkutsk Incoherent Scatter radar

We propose a new method for analyzing data from the Irkutsk Incoherent Scatter Radar. The method allows us to accomplish interferometric observation of discrete cosmic radio source characteristics. In this study, we analyze ionospheric scintillations of the radio source Cygnus-A. Observations were made in 2013 during regular radar sessions within 5–15 days for different seasons; the effective time of observation was 15–30 minutes per day. For interferometric analysis, the properties of correlation (coherence) coefficient of two independent recording channels were used. The statistical analysis of data from the independent channels allows us to construct two-dimensional histograms of radio source brightness distribution with a period of 18 s and to determine parameters (the maximum position and the histogram width) representing position and angular size of the radio source for each histogram. It is shown that the change of statistical characteristics does not correlate with fluctuations in power (scintillations) of the signal induced by radio wave propagation through ionospheric irregularities