• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.57.2-57.2
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• 2017

Remote and robotic telescopes are the most effective instrument for astronomical survey projects. The system is based on the dynamic operation of all astronomical instruments such as dome and telescope control system (TCS), focuser, filter wheel and data taking camera. We adopt the ASCOM driver platform to control the instruments through the integrated software. It can convert different interface libraries from various manufacturers into a uniform standard library. This allows us to effectively control astronomical instruments without modifying codes. We suggest a conceptual design of software for automation of a small telescope such as the new wide-field 0.25m telescope at McDonald Observatory. It can also be applied to operation of multi-telescopes in future projects.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.49.5-50
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• 2021

We report the optical follow-up observations of three long γ-ray burst events, GRB 201020A, GRB 201103B and GRB 210104A by the network of telescopes in the SomangNet project. We show light curves, color evolution and SED evolution, and fit them to a single power law function to derive decay index and compare their properties with other long GRBs samples. Also, we show a good observational example that 0.4-1m class telescopes in SomangNet have potential to catch dim light from high red shift object (R>22 mag) by deep imaging. In conclusion, we found that three GRBs have optical afterglow properties of long GRB and our results are consistent with the reports of high energy analysis.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.53.4-54
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• 2021

Although the era of very large telescopes has come, small telescopes still have advantages for fast follow-up and long-term monitoring observation. Intensive monitoring survey of nearby galaxies (IMSNG) aims to understand the nature of the supernovae (SNe) by catching the early light curve from them with the network of small telescopes from 0.4-m to 1.0-m all around the world. To achieve the scientific goals with heterogeneous facilities, three factors are important. First, automatic processes as soon as data is uploaded will increase efficiency and shorten the time. Second, searching for transients is necessary to deal with newly emerged transients for fast follow-up observation. Finally, the Integrated process for different telescopes gives a homogeneous output, which will eventually make connections with the database easy. Here, we introduce the integrated pipeline, 'gppy' based on Python, for more than 10 facilities having various configurations and its performance. Processes consist of image pre-process, photometry, image align, image combine, photometry, and transient search. In the connected database, homogeneous output is summarized and analyzed additionally to filter transient candidates with light curves. This talk will suggest the future work to improve the performance and usability on the other projects, gravitational wave electromagnetic wave counterpart in Korea Observatory (GECKO), and small telescope network of Korea (SOMANGNET).

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.29 no.spc1
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• pp.61-62
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• 1996

The photometry is reported for galaxies in two clusters A1983, 2065 with redshifts 0.046, 0.072 respectively. The luminosity segregation is observed only within a magnitude from the brightest galaxy. The alignment of the galaxy major axis is observed in the Corona Borealis cluster. The intermediate distance clusters (0.05 < z < 0.15) will be studied by CCD mounted on 125cm RCh and 70cm meniscus type telescopes.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.169-181
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• 2010

We develop a proto-model of an off-axis reflective telescope for infrared wide-field observations based on the design of Schwarzschild-Chang type telescope. With only two mirrors, this design achieves an entrance pupil diameter of 50 mm and an effective focal length of 100 mm. We can apply this design to a mid-infrared telescope with a field of view of $8^{\circ}{\times}8^{\circ}$. In spite of the substantial advantages of off-axis telescopes in the infrared compared to refractive or on-axis reflective telescopes, it is known to be difficult to align the mirrors in off-axis systems because of their asymmetric structures. Off-axis mirrors of our telescope are manufactured at the Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI). We analyze the fabricated mirror surfaces by fitting polynomial functions to the measured data. We accomplish alignment of this two-mirror off-axis system using a ray tracing method. A simple imaging test is performed to compare a pinhole image with a simulated prediction.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.77-81
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• 2008

As a continuation of a previous work by Park et al. (2006), we have developed a two-element radio interferometer that can measure both the phase and amplitude of a visibility function. Two small radio telescopes with diameters of 2.3 m are used as before, but this time an external reference oscillator is shared by the two telescopes so that the local oscillator frequencies are identical. We do not use a hardware correlator; instead we record signals from the two telescopes onto a PC and then perform software correlation. Complex visibilities are obtained toward the sun at ${\lambda}\;=\;21\;cm$, for 24 baselines with the use of the earth rotation and positional changes of one element, where the maximum baseline length projected onto UV plane is ${\sim}\;90{\lambda}$. As expected, the visibility amplitude decreases with the baseline length, while the phase is almost constant. The image obtained by the Fourier transformation of the visibility function nicely delineates the sun, which is barely resolved due to the limited baseline length. The experiment demonstrates that this system can be used as a "toy" interferometer at least for the education of (under)graduate students.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.109.1-109.1
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• 2012

In the past few years, two-planet circumbinary systems (e.g., HW Vir, NN Ser, DP Leo and HU Aqr) have been detected around short-period eclipsing binaries using ground-based telescopes. The existence of these planets has been inferred by interpreting the O-C variations of the mid-eclipse times. We have tested the orbital stability of these systems and propose to use Light Travel Time Effect (LITE) to detect such circumbinary planets from the ground. We generated synthetically the LITE signal of a two-planet circumbinary system with the aim to apply an analytic LITE model to recover the underlying synthetic system. To mimic a degree of realism inherent to ground-based observations, we added to the synthetic LITE data white noise with a Gaussian distribution and sampled the synthetic LITE signal randomly. We successfully recovered the original system demonstrating that two-planet circumbinary systems can be detected using ground-based telescopes, provided the timing measurements of the mid-eclipses are sufficiently accurate and the observing baseline is long enough to ensure a sufficient coverage of all involved periods. We used HU Aqr as a test system and applied our model to its proposed planetary bodies considering near-circular orbits. We present the results of our calculations and discuss the LITE-detectability of a HU Aqr-like system.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.61.1-61.1
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• 2021

OWL-Net (Optical Wide-field patroL Network) is the first space situational awareness facility of its kind in South Korea which consists of five identical 0.5 m wide-field telescopes with 4K by 4K CCDs. The five stations are located in Mongolia, Morocco, Israel, United States, and South Korea. They are being operated in fully autonomous mode with the minimum human intervention. The primary objective of OWL-Net is to track Korean domestic satellites. In addition, it can be possible to conduct time-series photometry of bright solar system objects. We will present the system overview of the OWL-Net telescopes and progress report.

• 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.40 no.1
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• pp.57.1-57.1
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• 2015

We will obtain deep wide-field images of the 150-200 nearby bright galaxies in the southern hemisphere, in order to explore the origin of faint extended features in the outer regions of target galaxies. Using KMTNet telescopes, we will take very deep images, spending ~ 4.5 hr for the B and R filters for each object. With this dataset, we will look for diffuse, low-surface brightness structures including outer disks, truncated disks, tidal features/stellar streams, and faint companions.