On March 30, the reporter learned from the National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that recently, the Daocheng Solar Radio Imaging Telescope (DSRT), which is in the system commissioning stage, carried out the first pulsar detection experiment based on radio image sequences in China, and successfully identified pulsar flicker from continuous radio images.

DSRT is a solar radio monitoring "aperture synthesis camera" independently developed by China, which operates in the 150-450MHz frequency band. The system adopts a unique ring array configuration and the original single channel multi ring absolute phase calibration technology, which can monitor the eruptive activity of the sun with high quality, achieve continuous imaging and spectral observation, and provide independent data for solar physics and space weather research.

The DSRT array consists of 313 parabolic antennas with a diameter of 6 meters, all of which are evenly distributed on a circle with a diameter of 1000 meters. It is the largest aperture synthesis radio imaging telescope in the world. Since March 2021, DSRT has obtained a large amount of solar activity images and spectral data in accordance with the principle of "construction, debugging, and operation at the same time", and has the ability to monitor the sun with high quality.

On March 28, 2023, using 146 unit antennas that have been initially integrated, Wu Lin, associate researcher of the Key Laboratory of Solar Activity and Space Weather of the Chinese Academy of Sciences/Radio Frequency Detection Research Group of the National Space Science Center, led a team to carry out pulsar observation, successfully obtained a continuous radio image sequence, identified the flicker of pulsar J0332+5434 in the image, and the positioning accuracy of pulsar reached 1.8 angular minutes.

This is the first time that pulsar has been detected by aperture synthesis real-time imaging in China, which fully verifies the staring imaging/detection capability of DSRT, and demonstrates the technical characteristics of full mobility, large field of view, high sensitivity, high resolution, and high dynamics, laying the foundation for subsequent radio astronomy expansion applications such as pulsar, rapid radio bursts, and near earth threat small sky detection.