• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.84.1-84.1
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• 2010

Globular clusters (GCs) are known to be one of the oldest objects in the Milky Way. Therefore the dynamical informations of GCs are very important to understand the formation and evolution of our Galaxy. Motion of GCs in the halo of Galaxy can be traced by radial velocities of individual stars and proper motions of GCs. Measuring the radial velocities of stars in GCs has been challenging for decades because the brightness of stars (even for the brightest stars) in GCs are too faint (V>14) to measure the radial velocities. The available large telescopes (D>4m) enable us to observe the spectra of stars in the red giant branch of GCs, and it is now more plausible to measure the radial velocities of stars in GCs. On the contrary it is still very difficult to measure the sky-projected two-dimensional motion of GCs in Galaxy even with the large telescopes because the distance to GCs is quite large (~10kpc) compared to the spatial resolution of present-day large ground-based telescopes. Instruments on-board Hubble Space Telescope are ideal to study the proper motion of GCs thanks to their extremely high spatial resolution (~0.05arcsec). We report a study of proper motion of NGC 104, one of the most metal-rich Milky Way GCs, based-on archival images of NGC 104 observed using HST/ACS. Using the stars in Small Magellanic Cloud as reference coordinate, we are able to measure the proper motions of individual stars in NGC 104 with a high precision. We discuss the internal dynamics of stars in NGC 104 by comparing proper motion results based-on shorter (<1yr) and longer (~7yrs) time durations.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.52.2-52.2
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• 2021

The Black Eye Galaxy M64 is an intriguing spiral galaxy with a Type III disk break. To trace the origin of its Type III component, we present HST/ACS F606W/F814W photometry of resolved stars in the outer disk of M64 (2.5' < R < 6.5'). First, we discover a bright extended globular cluster (GC) M64-GC1 at R ~ 5.5', and find that it is an old metal-poor halo GC ([Fe/H] = -1.5 +/- 0.2). Second, we find that there are two distinct subpopulations of red giant branch stars (RGBs). One is an old metal-rich ([Fe/H] ~ -0.4) disk population, and the other is an old metal-poor halo population similar to the resolved stars in M64-GC1. The radial number density profile of the metal-rich RGB follows an exponential disk law, while that of the metal-poor RGB follows a de Vaucouleurs's low. From these results, we conclude that the origin of the Type III component in M64 is a halo, not a disk or a bulge. We will further discuss the results in regards to the formation and evolution of M64.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.37.2-37.2
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• 2019

Recent investigations of the double red clump in the color-magnitude diagram of the Milky Way bulge cast serious doubts on the structure and formation origin of the outer bulge. Unlike previous interpretation based on an X-shaped bulge, stellar evolution models and CN-band observations have suggested that this feature is another manifestation of the multiple stellar population phenomenon observed in globular clusters (GCs). This new scenario requires a significant fraction of the outer bulge stars with chemical patterns uniquely observed in GCs. Here we show from homogeneous high-quality spectroscopic data that the red giant branch stars in the outer bulge ($>5.5^{\circ}$ from the Galactic center) are clearly divided into two groups according to Na abundance in the [Na/Fe] - [Fe/H] plane. The Na-rich stars are also enhanced in Al, while the differences in O and Mg are not observed between the two Na groups. The population ratio and the Na and Al differences between the two groups are also comparable with those observed in metal-rich GCs. Since these chemical patterns and characteristics are only explained by stars originated in GCs, this is compelling evidence that the outer bulge was mostly assembled from disrupted proto-GCs in the early history of the Milky Way. We will also discuss the implications of this result on the formation of the early-type galaxies in general.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.363-376
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• 2005

To study the effects of giant population on dynamical substructures of the central region of NGC 7006, we examine the radial variations of ellipticity and position angle on By stellar photometry using ellipse fitting technique. Total variations of ellipticity and position angle lie in the range $0.02\~0.06\;and\;-10^{\circ}+90^{\circ}$, respectively, from the center out to three times the half light radius. Our ellipse fitting results, after removing giant populations, show that the apparent central dynamical substructures of NGC 7006 are mainly affected by red giant, horizontal branch stars. On the contrary, the contribution of light from subgiant stars to the inner dynamical substructure seems to be insignificant.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.73.1-73.1
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• 2013

It is believed that the current census of star clusters in the Milky Way is far from being complete, because of high extinction. Taking advantage of recent wide-field infrared surveys (the WISE as well as 2MASS, UKIDSS GPS, and VVV), we search for new star clusters in the central region of the Milky Way (720 $deg^2$-wide area at |1| < $30^{\circ}$ and |b| < $6^{\circ}$). We find 1840 candidates by visual inspection of the WISE images. The spatial distribution of these candidates show a strong concentration along the Milky Way, showing that most of them belong to the Milky Way. Among them, 26 are probably star clusters, considering their morphology, color-magnitude diagrams, and the degree of central concentration of stars. Eighteen of them appear to be very young in the embedded phase, and six of them are considered to be relatively old, showing a developed red giant branch. Implications of the primary results will be discussed.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.97-104
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• 2006

From the BV images of the metal-poor globular cluster NGC 1904 obtained with the 2K CCD camera equipped on the BOAO 1.8m telescope, we construct (B - V, V) color-magnitude diagram of the cluster. The apparent V magnitudes of the RGB bump and tip have been measured from the luminosity function of the iteratively selected RGB stars in NGC 1904. Theoretical absolute $M_v$ magnitudes of the RGB bump and tip are estimated using the Yonsei-Yale isochrones. The distance modulus of NGC 1904 has been derived by comparing the observed apparent V magnitude with the estimated absolute $M_v$ magnitude of the RGB bump and tip.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.48.2-48.2
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• 2014

We study the resolved stellar populations of ESO149-G003, a nearby dwarf irregular galaxy in the vicinity of the Sculptor group. We present F606W-F814W vs. F814W colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) obtained from HST/ACS archival data. We analyze the stellar content of ESO149-G003, as well as the spatial distribution of stars selected from stellar isochrone fitting analysis. Distance measurement using the tip of the red giant branch method, age measurement of various populations seen in the CMD, and isochrone fitting result will be shown and discussed.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.49.1-49.1
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• 2012

Recently it is found that the globular clusters are not only bound in their host galaxies, but also are wandering between galaxies in Virgo and Coma clusters. The cluster-wide distribution of these intracluster globular clusters (IGCs) suggests that IGCs are an important probe to understand hierarchical structure formation. We present a survey of IGCs in Virgo cluster using HST archive images for four HST/ACS fields located from about 9 arcmin to 40 acrmin from the cluster center. We find ten new IGCs and confirm four previously known IGCs. The number density of IGCs decreases as the distance from the cluster center increases. We derive integrated photometry of IGCs. We also obtain photometry of resolved stars in the outer region of each cluster. These IGCs are fainter than $M_V{\approx}-9.5$ and mostly blue in (V-I) color. showing that they are mostly metal poor. The locations of red giant branch stars of IGCs in color-magnitude diagrams also show that they are meal-poor. We discuss the implications of these results.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.157-165
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• 2017

$H_2O$ maser emission at 22 GHz in the circumstellar envelope is one of the good tracers of detailed physics and kinematics in the mass loss process of asymptotic giant branch stars. Long-term monitoring of an $H_2O$ maser spectrum with high time resolution enables us to clarify acceleration processes of the expanding shell in the stellar atmosphere. We monitored the $H_2O$ maser emission of the semi-regular variable R Crt with the Kagoshima 6-m telescope, and obtained a large data set of over 180 maser spectra over a period of 1.3 years with an observational span of a few days. Using an automatic peak detection method based on least-squares fitting, we exhaustively detected peaks as significant velocity components with the radial velocity on a $0.1kms^{-1}$ scale. This analysis result shows that the radial velocity of red-shifted and blue-shifted components exhibits a change between acceleration and deceleration on the time scale of a few hundred days. These velocity variations are likely to correlate with intensity variations, in particular during flaring state of $H_2O$ masers. It seems reasonable to consider that the velocity variation of the maser source is caused by shock propagation in the envelope due to stellar pulsation. However, it is difficult to explain the relationship between the velocity variation and the intensity variation only from shock propagation effects. We found that a time delay of the integrated maser intensity with respect to the optical light curve is about 150 days.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.35.1-35.1
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• 2021

RR Lyrae stars are sensitive probe for the precision stellar astrophysics and also for the cosmic distance scale thanks to their well-defined near-infrared Period-Luminosity relations (PLRs). These horizontal branch variables can be used for primary calibration of the first-rung of population II distance ladder providing an evaluation of the ongoing tension between Cepheid-Supernovae based Hubble constant and the Planck results. Therefore, absolute calibration of RR Lyrae PLRs is now crucial to complement or test the tip of the red giant branch based distances, and in turn, population II star based Hubble constant measurements. While the pulsation models of RR Lyrae can reproduce most observables, they predict a significant metallicity effect on their JHKs-band PLRs that is inconsistent with so-far limited observational studies. We remedy this inconsistency of metallicity dependence in RR Lyrae PLRs by combining their near-infrared observations in the globular clusters of different mean-metallicities with the new parallaxes from the Gaia early data release 3 (EDR3). Our empirical results on Period-Luminosity-Metallicity (PLZ)relations are consistent with theoretical predictions but the precision of absolute calibrations is still affected by the parallax uncertainties and the systematic zero-point offset present in the Gaia EDR3.