Abstract

The Nobeyama Radioheliograph is a radio interferometer dedicated to solar observations at 17 GHz. Its imaging performance is concisely described on the basis of the correlator outputs. Antenna-based errors are removed by a self-calibration method. Possible causes of correlator-based errors have been considered, respectively. Among them, the important factors are: (1) unequal bandpass characteristics, (2) antenna pointing errors, (3) delay errors, and (4) noise at correlator outputs. The expected dynamic range of synthesized snap-shot images is 30 dB based on these correlator-based errors. However, the actual images have a 25 dB dynamic range, which may be mostly due to the image-restoration procedure currently adopted.