Perspectives of usage of Irkutsk incoherent scatter radar (IISR) as an imaging riometer and radio-heliograph

Space radio emission is the important source of background for radio physical investigation of the ionosphere. Variations of the background signal and scintillations of the discrete radio sources allow defining some ionosphere characteristics such as plasma density variations and degree of plasma inhomogeneity. Irkutsk incoherent scatter radar (IISR) has narrow palm-like directivity diagram. With this diagram IISR scans a wide sector of elevation angles of the celestial sphere. The sweeping time of a 40° sector with 0.5° step is around several seconds. Therefore, IISR in the passive mode is capable to work as an imaging riometer. As a result of several month passive mode observations we detected a number of scintillation events and found a good agreement between the scintillation and spread-F events which were observed independently. IISR in the passive mode is also sensitive to the solar events and probably capable to observe solar radio emission objects with good time resolution and in a wide spatial range.