• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.89-102
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• 2021

Even in an era where 8-meter class telescopes are common, small telescopes are considered very valuable research facilities since they are available for rapid follow-up or long term monitoring observations. To maximize the usefulness of small telescopes in Korea, we established the SomangNet, a network of 0.4-1.0 m class optical telescopes operated by Korean institutions, in 2020. Here, we give an overview of the project, describing the current participating telescopes, its scientific scope and operation mode, and the prospects for future activities. SomangNet currently includes 10 telescopes that are located in Australia, USA, and Chile as well as in Korea. The operation of many of these telescopes currently relies on operators, and we plan to upgrade them for remote or robotic operation. The latest SomangNet science projects include monitoring and follow-up observational studies of galaxies, supernovae, active galactic nuclei, symbiotic stars, solar system objects, neutrino/gravitational-wave sources, and exoplanets.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.38.2-39
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• 2021

I will presents the analysis of the gas properties of the protoplanetary disk surrounding the young low-mass (about 1.2M_sun) triple star, GG Tau A. This work makes use of ALMA observations of rotational lines of CO (¹²CO, ¹³CO and C¹⁸O) together NOEMA observations of a few dozens of other molecules. While the CO emission gives information on the molecular layer close to the disk atmosphere, its less abundant isotopologues ¹³CO and C¹⁸O bring information much deeper in the molecular layer. I will present the analysis of the morphology and kinematics of the gas disk using the CO isotopologues. A radiative transfer model of the ring in CO isotopologues will also be presented. The subtraction of this model from the original data reveals the weak emission of the molecular gas lying inside the cavity. Thus, I am able to evaluate the properties of the gas inside the cavity, such as the gas dynamics, excitation conditions, and the amount of mass in the cavity. High angular resolution observations of CO reveals sprials induced by embedded planet(s) located near the 3:2:1 mean-motion resonance that help to explain the special morphology of the circumbinary disk. I also discuss some chemical properties of the GG Tau A disk. I report the first detection of H2S and C₂S in a protoplanetary disk. The molecule abundance relative to ¹³CO of about twenties other molecules will also be given. In GG Tau A, the detections of rare molecules such as H₂S and C₂S have been probably possible because the disk is more massive (a factor about 3-5) than other disks where the molecules was searched. Such a large disk mass makes the system suitable to detect rare molecules and to study cold-chemistry in protoplanetary disks.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.90-90
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• 2014

The Immersion Grating Infrared Spectrometer (IGRINS) is the first astronomical spectrograph that uses a silicon immersion grating as its dispersive element. IGRINS fully covers the H and K band atmospheric transmission windows in a single exposure. It is a compact high-resolution cross-dispersion spectrometer whose resolving power R is 40,000. An individual volume phase holographic grating serves as a secondary dispersing element for each of the H and K spectrograph arms. On the 2.7m Harlan J. Smith telescope at the McDonald Observatory, the slit size is $1^{{\prime}{\prime}}{\times}15^{{\prime}{\prime}}$. IGRINS has a plate scale of 0.27" pixel-1 on a $2048{\times}2048$ pixel Teledyne Scientific & Imaging HAWAII-2RG detector with a SIDECAR ASIC cryogenic controller. The instrument includes four subsystems; a calibration unit, an input relay optics module, a slit-viewing camera, and nearly identical H and K spectrograph modules. The use of a silicon immersion grating and a compact white pupil design allows the spectrograph collimated beam size to be 25mm, which permits the entire cryogenic system to be contained in a moderately sized ($0.96m{\times}0.6m{\times}0.38m$) rectangular Dewar. The fabrication and assembly of the optical and mechanical components were completed in 2013. From January to July of this year, we completed the system optical alignment and carried out commissioning observations on three runs to improve the efficiency of the instrument software and hardware. We describe the major design characteristics of the instrument including the system requirements and the technical strategy to meet them. We also present the instrumental performance test results derived from the commissioning runs at the McDonald Observatory.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.36 no.7
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• pp.661-673
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• 2015

UBVI CCD photometry of the intermediate age open cluster NGC 7790 has been obtained using AZT-22 1.5 m telescope (f/7.74) at the Maidanak Astronomical Observatory in Uzbekistan. NGC 7790 contains three ${\delta}$ Cep variable stars including CEa Cas, CEb Cas, and CF Cas. PSF photometry was carried out using IRAF/DAOPHOT for all observations. The total number of stars observed both in V and I filter was 1008 and the limiting magnitude was $V{\approx}22$. To determine atmospheric extinction coefficients and photometric zero points, many blue and red standard stars as well as the standard stars in the celestial equator under various airmass were observed. Photometric data were transformed into the standard Johnson-Cousins' UBVI standard system. From the analysis of UBVI color-magnitude diagram and color-color diagram, the color excess in V and I filter [$E(B-V)=0.58{\pm}0.02$], the selective extinction ratio in V and I filter [$R_V{\equiv}A_V/E(B-V)=3.02{\pm}0.09$] and distance modulus ($V_0-M_V=12.65{\pm}0.10$) of the cluster were determined. The age of the cluster was estimated to be log $age=8.05{\pm}0.05$ [yr] based on the position of these three Cepheid variables in the color-magnitude diagram, the isochrone of the Geneva group ($Ekstr{\ddot{o}}m$ et al., 2012-Z=0.019), and the isochrone of the Padova group (Bressan et al., 2012-Z=0.014) were used to compare each other. Of them, the Geneva models that considered stellar rotation well described the position of ${\delta}$ Cepheid variables in the blue loop. Although they were well consistent with standard period-luminosity relation of ${\delta}$ Cepheid variables, three Cepheid variables in NGC 7790 were, on average, brighter by about 0.5 mag than the absolute magnitude estimated from the mean period-luminosity relation at a given period.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.393-408
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• 2005

We developed and compared two automatic algorithms for moving object detections in the YSTAR-NEOPAT sky survey program. One method, called starlist comparison method, is to identify moving object candidates by comparing the photometry data tables from successive images. Another method, called image subtraction method, is to identify the candidates by subtracting one image from another which isolates sources moving against background stars. The efficiency and accuracy of these algorithms have been tested using actual survey data from the YSTAR-NEOPAT telescope system. For the detected candidates, we performed eyeball inspection of animated images to confirm validity of asteroid detections. Main conclusions include followings. First, the optical distortion in the YSTAR-NEOPAT wide-field images can be properly corrected by comparison with USNO-B1.0 catalog and the astrometric accuracy can be preserved at around 1.5 arcsec. Secondly, image subtraction provides more robust and accurate detection of moving objects. For two different thresholds of 2.0 and $4.0\sigma$, image subtraction method uncovered 34 and 12 candidates and most of them are confirmed to be real. Starlist comparison method detected many more candidates, 60 and 6 for each threshold level, but nearly half of them turned out to be false detections.