Observations of Low Frequency Solar Radio Bursts from the Rosse Solar-Terrestrial Observatory

The Rosse Solar-Terrestrial Observatory (RSTO; www.rosseobservatory.ie ) was established at Birr Castle, Co. Offaly, Ireland (53°05′38.9″, 7°55′12.7″) in 2010 to study solar radio bursts and the response of the Earth’s ionosphere and geomagnetic field. To date, three Compound Astronomical Low-cost Low-frequency Instrument for Spectroscopy in Transportable Observatory (CALLISTO) spectrometers have been installed, with the capability of observing in the frequency range of 10 – 870 MHz. The receivers are fed simultaneously by biconical and log-periodic antennas. Nominally, frequency spectra in the range of 10 – 400 MHz are obtained with four sweeps per second over 600 channels. Here, we describe the RSTO solar radio spectrometer set-up, and present dynamic spectra of samples of type II, III and IV radio bursts. In particular, we describe the fine-scale structure observed in type II bursts, including band splitting and rapidly varying herringbone features.