• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.113-119
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• 2021

It is difficult for observers to conduct an optical alignment at an observatory without the assistance of an optical engineer if optomechanical parts are to be replaced at night. We present a practical tilt correction method to obtain the optimal optical alignment condition using the symmetricity of optical aberrations of a wide-field on-axis telescope at night. We conducted coarse tilt correction by visually examining the symmetry of two representative star shapes obtained at two guide chips facing each other, such as east-west or north-south pairs. After coarse correction, we observed four sets of small stamp images using four guide cameras located at each cardinal position by changing the focus positions in 10-㎛ increments and passing through the optimum focus position in the range of ±200 ㎛. The standard deviation of each image, as a function of the focus position, was fitted with a second-order polynomial function to derive the optimal focus position at each cardinal edge. We derived the tilt angles from the slopes converted by the distance and the focus position difference between two paired guide chip combinations such as east-west and north-south. We used this method to collimate the on-axis wide-field telescope KMTNet in Chile after replacing two old focus actuators. The total optical alignment time was less than 30 min. Our method is practical and straightforward for maintaining the optical performance of wide-field telescopes such as KMTNet.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.293-299
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• 2023

The Wide-Angle Polarimetric Camera (PolCam) is installed on the Korea's lunar orbiter, Danuri, which launched on August 5, 2022. The mission objectives of PolCam are to construct photometric maps at a wavelength of 336 nm and polarization maps at 461 and 748 nm, with a phase angle range of 0°-135° and a spatial resolution of less than 100 m. PolCam is an imager using the push-broom method and has two cameras, Cam 1 and Cam 2, with a viewing angle of 45° to the right and left of the spacecraft's direction of orbit. We conducted performance tests in a laboratory setting before installing PolCam's flight model on the spacecraft. We analyzed the CCD's dark current, flat-field frame, spot size, and light flux. The dark current was obtained during thermal / vacuum test with various temperatures and the flat-field frame data was also obtained with an integrating sphere and tungsten light bulb. We describe the calibration method and results in this study.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.195-199
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• 2023

This paper is written as a follow-up observations to reinterpret the radial velocity (RV) of HD 36384, where the existence of planetary systems is known to be ambiguous. In giants, it is, in general, difficult to distinguish the signals of planetary companions from those of stellar activities. Thus, known exoplanetary giant hosts are relatively rare. We, for many years, have obtained RV data in evolved stars using the high-resolution, fiber-fed Bohyunsan Observatory Echelle Spectrograph (BOES) at the Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory (BOAO). Here, we report the results of RV variations in the M giant HD 36384. We have found two significant periods of 586 d and 490 d. Considering the orbital stability, it is impossible to have two planets at so close orbits. To determine the nature of the RV variability variations, we analyze the HIPPARCOS photometric data, some indicators of stellar activities, and line profiles. A significant period of 580 d was revealed in the HIPPARCOS photometry. H_α EW variations also show a meaningful period of 582 d. Thus, the period of 586 d may be closely related to the rotational modulations and/or stellar pulsations. On the other hand, the other significant period of 490 d is interpreted as the result of the orbiting companion. Our orbital fit suggests that the companion was a planetary mass of 6.6 M_J and is located at 1.3 AU from the host.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.665-669
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• 2015

The Kepler mission has shown that small planets are extremely common. It is likely that nearly every star in the sky hosts at least one rocky planet. We just need to look hard enough-but this requires vast amounts of telescope time. MINERVA (MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array) is a dedicated exoplanet observatory with the primary goal of discovering rocky, Earth-like planets orbiting in the habitable zone of bright, nearby stars. The MINERVA team is a collaboration among UNSW Australia, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Penn State University, University of Montana, and the California Institute of Technology. The four-telescope MINERVA array will be sited at the F.L. Whipple Observatory on Mt Hopkins in Arizona, USA. Full science operations will begin in mid-2015 with all four telescopes and a stabilised spectrograph capable of high-precision Doppler velocity measurements. We will observe ~100 of the nearest, brightest, Sun-like stars every night for at least five years. Detailed simulations of the target list and survey strategy lead us to expect $15{\pm}4$ new low-mass planets.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.329-352
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• 2005

Long term observations of full-disk Lyman-o irradiance have been made by the instruments on various satellites. In addition, several sounding rockets dating back to the 1950s and up through the present have measured the $Lyman-{\alpha}$ irradiance. Previous full disk $Lyman-{\alpha}$ images of the sun have been very interesting and useful scientifically, but have been only five-minute 'snapshots' obtained on sounding rocket flights. All of these observations to date have been snapshots, with no time resolution to observe changes in the chromospheric structure as a result of the evolving magnetic field, and its effect on the Lyman-o intensity. The $Lyman-{\alpha}$ Imaging Solar Telescope(LIST) can provide a unique opportunity for the study of the sun in the $Lyman-{\alpha}$ region with the high time and spatial resolution for the first time. Up to the 2nd year development, the preliminary design of the optics, mechanical structure and electronics system has been completed. Also the mechanical structure analysis, thermal analysis were performed and the material for the structure was chosen as a result of these analyses. And the test plan and the verification matrix were decided. The operation systems, technical and scientific operation, were studied and finally decided. Those are the technical operation, mechanical working modes for the observation and safety, the scientific operation and the process of the acquired data. The basic techniques acquired through the development of satellite based solar telescope are essential for the construction of space environment forecast system in the future. The techniques which we developed through this study, like mechanical, optical and data processing techniques, could be applied extensively not only to the process of the future production of flight models of this kind, but also to the related industries. Also, we can utilize the scientific achievements which are obtained throughout the project And these can be utilized to build a high resolution photometric detectors for military and commercial purposes. It is also believed that we will be able to apply several acquired techniques for the development of the Korean satellite projects in the future.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Near Infrared Spectroscopy Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.1121-1121
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• 2001

A previous study (Berzaghi et al., 2001) evaluated the performance of 3 calibration methods, modified partial least squares (MPLS), local PLS (LOCAL) and artificial neural networks (ANN) on the prediction of the chemical composition of forages, using a large NIR database. The study used forage samples (n=25,977) from Australia, Europe (Belgium, Germany, Italy and Sweden) and North America (Canada and U.S.A) with reference values for moisture, crude protein and neutral detergent fibre content. The spectra of the samples were collected using 10 different Foss NIR Systems instruments, only some of which had been standardized to one master instrument. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the behaviour of these different calibration methods when predicting the same samples measured on different instruments. Twenty-two sealed samples of different kind of forages were measured in duplicate on seven instruments (one master and six slaves). Three sets of near infrared spectra (1100 to 2500nm) were created. The first set consisted of the spectra in their original form (unstandardized); the second set was created using a single sample standardization (Clone1); the third was created using a multiple sample procedure (Clone6). WinISI software (Infrasoft International Inc., Port Mathilda, PA, USA) was used to perform both types of standardization, Clone1 is just a photometric offset between a “master” instrument and the “slave” instrument. Clone6 modifies both the X-axis through a wavelength adjustment and the Y-axis through a simple regression wavelength by wavelength. The Clone1 procedure used one sample spectrally close to the centre of the population. The six samples used in Clone 6 were selected to cover the range of spectral variation in the sample set. The remaining fifteen samples were used to evaluate the performances of the different models. The predicted values for dry matter, protein and neutral detergent fibre from the master Instrument were considered as “reference Y values” when computing the statistics RMSEP, SEPC, R, Bias, Slope, mean GH (global Mahalanobis distance) and mean NH (neighbourhood Mahalanobis distance) for the 6 slave instruments. From the results we conclude that i) all the calibration techniques gave satisfactory results after standardization. Without standardization the predicted data from the slaves would have required slope and bias correction to produce acceptable statistics. ii) Standardization reduced the errors for all calibration methods and parameters tested, reducing not only systematic biases but also random errors. iii) Standardization removed slope effects that were significantly different from 1.0 in most of the cases. iv) Clone1 and Clone6 gave similar results except for NDF where Clone6 gave better RMSEP values than Clone1. v) GH and NH were reduced by half even with very large data sets including unstandardized spectra.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.235-253
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• 2014

Intensity interferometry, based on the Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect, is a simple and inexpensive method for optical interferometry at microarcsecond angular resolutions; its use in astronomy was abandoned in the 1970s because of low sensitivity. Motivated by recent technical developments, we argue that the sensitivity of large modern intensity interferometers can be improved by factors up to approximately 25 000, corresponding to 11 photometric magnitudes, compared to the pioneering Narrabri Stellar Interferometer. This is made possible by (i) using avalanche photodiodes (APD) as light detectors, (ii) distributing the light received from the source over multiple independent spectral channels, and (iii) use of arrays composed of multiple large light collectors. Our approach permits the construction of large (with baselines ranging from few kilometers to intercontinental distances) optical interferometers at the cost of (very) long-baseline radio interferometers. Realistic intensity interferometer designs are able to achieve limiting R-band magnitudes as good as $m_R{\approx}14$, sufficient for spatially resolved observations of main-sequence O-type stars in the Magellanic Clouds. Multi-channel intensity interferometers can address a wide variety of science cases: (i) linear radii, effective temperatures, and luminosities of stars, via direct measurements of stellar angular sizes; (ii) mass-radius relationships of compact stellar remnants, via direct measurements of the angular sizes of white dwarfs; (iii) stellar rotation, via observations of rotation flattening and surface gravity darkening; (iv) stellar convection and the interaction of stellar photospheres and magnetic fields, via observations of dark and bright starspots; (v) the structure and evolution of multiple stars, via mapping of the companion stars and of accretion flows in interacting binaries; (vi) direct measurements of interstellar distances, derived from angular diameters of stars or via the interferometric Baade-Wesselink method; (vii) the physics of gas accretion onto supermassive black holes, via resolved observations of the central engines of luminous active galactic nuclei; and (viii) calibration of amplitude interferometers by providing a sample of calibrator stars.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2018

Detecting exoplanets around giant stars sheds light on the later-stage evolution of planetary systems. We observed the M giant HD 18438 and the K giant HD 158996 as part of a Search for Exoplanets around Northern circumpolar Stars (SENS) and obtained 38 and 24 spectra from 2010 to 2017 using the high-resolution Bohyunsan Observatory Echelle Spectrograph (BOES) at the 1.8m telescope of Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory in Korea. We obtained precise RV measurements from the spectra and found long-period radial velocity (RV) variations with period 719.0 days for HD 18438 and 820.2 days for HD 158996. We checked the chromospheric activities using Ca $\text\tiny{II}$ H and $H{\alpha}$ lines, HIPPARCOS photometry and line bisectors to identify the origin of the observed RV variations. In the case of HD 18438, we conclude that the observed RV variations with period 719.0 days are likely to be caused by the pulsations because the periods of HIPPARCOS photometric and $H{\alpha}$ EW variations for HD 18438 are similar to that of RV variations in Lomb-Scargle periodogram, and there are no correlations between bisectors and RV measurements. In the case of HD 158996, on the other hand, we did not find any similarity in the respective periodograms nor any correlation between RV variations and line bisector variations. In addition, the probability that the real rotational period can be as longer than the RV period for HD 158996 is only about 4.3%. Thus we conclude that observed RV variations with a period of 820.2 days of HD 158996 are caused by a planetary companion, which has the minimum mass of 14.0 $M_{Jup}$, the semi-major axis of 2.1 AU, and eccentricity of 0.13 assuming the stellar mass of $1.8 M_{\odot}$. HD 158996 is so far one of the brightest and largest stars to harbor an exoplanet candidate.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.54.1-54.1
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• 2016

Multi-wavelength variability is a staple of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Optical variability probes the nature of the central engine of AGN at smaller linear scales than conventional imaging and spectroscopic techniques. Previous studies have shown that optical variability is more prevalent at longer timescales and at shorter wavelengths. Intra-night variability can be explained through the damped random walk model but small samples and inhomogeneous data have made constraining this model hard. To understand the properties and physical mechanism of intra-night optical variability, we are performing the KMTNet Active Nuclei Variability Survey (KANVaS). Using KMTNet, we aim to study the intra-night variability of ~1000 AGN at a magnitude depth of ~19mag in R band over a total area of ${\sim}24deg^2$ on the sky. Test data in the COSMOS, XMM-LSS, and S82-2 fields was obtained over 4, 6, and 8 nights respectively during 2015, in B, V, R, and I bands. Each night was composed of 5-13 epoch with ~30 min cadence and 80-120 sec exposure times. As a pilot study, we analyzed data in the COSMOS field where we reach a magnitude depth of ~19.5 in R band (at S/N~100) with seeing varying between 1.5-2.0 arcsec. We used the Chandra-COSMOS catalog to identify 166 AGNs among 549 AGNs at B<23. We performed differential photometry between the selected AGN and nearby stars, achieving photometric uncertainty ~0.01mag. We employ various standard time-series analysis tools to identify variable AGN, including the chi-square test. Preliminarily results indicate that intra-night variability is found for ~17%, 17%, 8% and 7% of all X-ray selected AGN in the B, V, R, and I band, respectively. The majority of the identified variable AGN are classified as Type 1 AGN, with only a handful of Type 2 AGN showing evidence for variability. The work done so far confirms there are more variable AGN at shorter wavelengths and that intra-night variability most likely originates in the accretion disk of these objects. We will briefly discuss the quality of the data, challenges we encountered, solutions we employed for this work, and our updated future plans.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.11-21
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• 2019

Intensive Monitoring Survey of Nearby Galaxies (IMSNG) is a high cadence observation program monitoring nearby galaxies with high probabilities of hosting supernovae (SNe). IMSNG aims to constrain the SN explosion mechanism by inferring sizes of SN progenitor systems through the detection of the shock-heated emission that lasts less than a few days after the SN explosion. To catch the signal, IMSNG utilizes a network of 0.5-m to 1-m class telescopes around the world and monitors the images of 60 nearby galaxies at distances D < 50 Mpc to a cadence as short as a few hours. The target galaxies are bright in near-ultraviolet (NUV) with $M_{NUV}$ < -18.4 AB mag and have high probabilities of hosting SNe ($0.06SN\;yr^{-1}$ per galaxy). With this strategy, we expect to detect the early light curves of 3.4 SNe per year to a depth of R ~ 19.5 mag, enabling us to detect the shock-heated emission from a progenitor star with a radius as small as $0.1R_{\odot}$. The accumulated data will be also useful for studying faint features around the target galaxies and other science projects. So far, 18 SNe have occurred in our target fields (16 in IMSNG galaxies) over 5 years, confirming our SN rate estimate of $0.06SN\;yr^{-1}$ per galaxy.