• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.73-75
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• 2017

Debris disks are important observational clues to understanding on-going planetary system formation. They are usually identified by significant mid-infrared excess on top of the photospheric emission of a central star on the basis of prediction from J-, H-, and Ks-band fluxes and the stellar model spectra. For bright stars, 2MASS near-infrared fluxes suffer large uncertainties due to the near-infrared camera saturation. Therefore we have performed follow-up observations with the IRSF 1.4 m near-infrared telescope located in South Africa to obtain accurate J-, H-, and Ks-band fluxes of the central stars. Among 754 main-sequence stars which are detected in the AKARI $18{\mu}m$ band, we have performed photometry for 325 stars with IRSF. As a result, we have successfully improved the flux accuracy of the central stars from 9.2 % to 0.5 % on average. Using this dataset, we have detected $18{\mu}m$ excess emission from 57 stars in our samples with a $3{\sigma}$ level. We find that some of them have high ratios of the excess to the photospheric emission even around very old stars, which cannot be explained by the current planet-formation theories.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.76.2-76.2
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• 2013

SPICA(SPace Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics) is an infrared space observatory with cooled telescope of 3 m aperture. Because of its large aperture, near- and mid-infrared instruments onboard SPICA require fine guidance with attitude accuracy less than 0.1 arcsecond. The FPC-G is a focal plane camera to achieve this high attitude accuracy and KASI is leading its development. The SPICA project is now under the Risk Mitigation Phase 2 (RMP2) and one of major risks is to satisfy the requirement of pointing and attitude control. To assess the impacts of disturbance sources on the attitude control and devise methods to mitigate possible risks, a software simulator of the FPC-G is under the development. In this presentation, we report the status of development of the simulator and the development plan during the RMP2.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.425-434
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• 2006

The KASINICS (KASI Nea.-Infrared Camera System) is a ground-based instrument developed by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). We developed a temperature and vacuum monitoring system for operating the KASINICS. The system consists of hardware and software parts. The acquired data we saved on a hard disk in a real-time mode. This system on also be applied to general cryogenic instruments. We tested our monitoring system for the cooling and vacuum performance of the KASINICS. The results show that our system is efficient and stable for the operation of the KASINICS.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.209-212
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• 2012

We present the results of the near-infrared (NIR) to mid-infrared (MIR) slit spectroscopic observations of the diffuse emission toward nine positions in the nearby irregular galaxy Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) with the Infrared Camera (IRC) on board AKARI. The unique characteristic of AKARI/IRC provides a great opportunity to analyze variations in the unidentified infrared (UIR) bands based on continuous spectra from 2.5 to $13.4{\mu}m$ of the same slit area. The observed variation of $I_{3.3}/I_{11.3}$ suggests destruction of small-sized UIR band carriers, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in harsh environments. This result demonstrates that the UIR $3.3{\mu}m$ band provides us powerful information on the excitation conditions and/or the size distribution of PAHs, which is of importance for understanding the evolutionary process of hydrocarbon grains in the Universe. It also suggests a new diagnostic diagram of two band ratios, such as $I_{3.3}/I_{11.3}$ versus $I_{7.7}/I_{11.3}$, for the interstellar radiation conditions. We discuss on the applicability of the diagnostic diagram to other astronomical objects, comparing the LMC results with those observed in other galaxies such as NGC 6946, NGC 1313, and M51.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.391-397
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• 2012

The SPICA (SPace Infrared Telescope for Cosmology & Astrophysics) project is a next-generation infrared space telescope optimized for mid- and far-infrared observation with a cryogenically cooled 3m-class telescope. It will achieve the high resolution as well as the unprecedented sensitivity from mid to far-infrared range. The FPC (Focal Plane Camera) proposed by KASI as an international collaboration is a near-infrared instrument. The FPC-S and FPC-G are responsible for the scientific observation in the near-infrared and the fine guiding, respectively. The FPC-G will significantly reduce pointing error down to below 0.075 arcsec through the observation of guiding stars in the focal plane. We analyzed the pointing requirement from the focal plane instruments as well as the error factors affecting the pointing stability. We also obtained the expected performance in operation modes. We concluded that the FPC-G can achieve the pointing stability below 0.075 arcsec which is the requirement from the focal plane instruments.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.43-49
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• 2006

The KASINICS (KASI Near Infrared Camera System) is a ground-based Near-Infrared (NIR) imaging instrument developed by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). In this paper, we report the test results of the KASINICS camera optics system which is comprised of a 1-1 Offner relay. We measure that the surface RMS fluctuations of the Offner mirrors are at the level of $10^{-1}-10^{-2}$ of the target wavelengths, showing that the mirrors are sufficiently smooth for NIR observations. The alignment of the Offner optics system has been checked too. Our ray-tracing simulations find that the image quality should not degrade more than the pixel size of the KASINICS ($40{\mu}m$), if a de-centering or a tilt of the Offner mirrors are within 5mm, or $2.5^{\circ}$. Our measurement shows that the de-centering or the tilt of the Offner mirrors are less than 1 mm or $0.5^{\circ}$, assuring that the KASINICS image quality are not affected by the alignment errors. We have also measured that the optics resolution is $20{\mu}m$ and it does not degrade more than 10% over the detector surface area of 14.3 mm ${/times}$ 14.3mm. Overall, we conclude that the KASINICS optics system satisfies the design requirements for NIR imaging observations.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.97 no.6
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• pp.561-564
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• 2008

Pinus densiflora(red pine) stands in Korea have been faced with the serious threat by pine wilt disease caused by Bursaphelenchus xylophilus (nematodes). It is not easy to early detect and prevent the infected trees because those cannot be visually identified during the initial phase of infection. Red pine is usually infected by B. xylophilus from May to July and can be just visually detected in October or November. While the infected trees are wilted, the spectral value of Near Infrared (NIR) is supposed to be decreased. Based on this phenomena, in this paper, the vegetation vitality change of infected trees was analyzed using vegetation indices. Spectral values of Red, Green and NIR had been acquired monthly by a portable NIR camera in the same place of red pine stands infected by pine wilt disease. It could be proven that the vegetation index, or vegetation vitality of damaged trees starts to decrease from June, in the early infecting phase.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.339-348
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• 2007

KASINICS (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute Near Infrared Camera System) is equipped with a InSb array which can observe $1-5\;{\mu}m$ bands in near-infrared. The absorption and emission by telluric water vapor becomes serious in the bands longer than $3\;{\mu}m$. We measured PWV (precipitable Water Vapor) levels above Bohyusan Optical Astronomy Observatory and Sobaeksan Optical Astronomy Observatory from July 2006 to August 2007 using the GPS PWV measurement system of KASI. We found that monthly averaged PWVs are lower than the prediction using dew-point temperature and as low as above Kitt Peak from September to February.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.41-43
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• 2017

AKARI performed about 10,000 spectroscopic observations with the Infrared Camera (IRC) during its mission phase. These IRC observations provide unique spectroscopic data at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths for studies of the next few decades because of its high sensitivity and unique wavelength coverage. In this paper, we present the current status of the activity for improving the IRC spectroscopic data reduction process, including the toolkit and related data packages, and also discuss the goal of this project.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.187-193
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• 2012

AKARI has 4 imaging bands in the far-infrared (FIR) and 9 imaging bands that cover the near-infrared (NIR) to mid-infrared (MIR) contiguously. The FIR bands probe the thermal emission from sub-micron dust grains, while the MIR bands observe emission from stochastically-heated very small grains and the unidentified infrared (UIR) band emissions from carbonaceous materials that contain aromatic and aliphatic bonds. The multi-band characteristics of the AKARI instruments are quite efficient to study the spectral energy distribution of the interstellar medium, which always shows multi-component nature, as well as its variations in the various environments. AKARI also has spectroscopic capabilities. In particular, one of the onboard instruments, Infrared Camera (IRC), can obtain a continuous spectrum from 2.5 to $13{\mu}m$ with the same slit. This allows us to make a comparative study of the UIR bands in the diffuse emission from the 3.3 to $11.3{\mu}m$ for the first time. The IRC explores high-sensitivity spectroscopy in the NIR, which enables the study of interstellar ices and the UIR band emission at $3.3-3.5{\mu}m$ in various objects. Particularly, the UIR bands in this spectral range contain unique information on the aromatic and aliphatic bonds in the band carriers. This presentation reviews the results of AKARI observations of the interstellar medium with an emphasis on the observations of the NIR spectroscopy.