The e-CALLISTO is a network of CALLISTO (Compact Astronomical Low-frequency, Low-cost Instrument for Spectroscopy in Transportable Observatories) spectrometers which detect solar radio bursts 24 hours a day in frequency range 45-870 MHz. The number of channels per spectrum is 200 and the time resolution of whole spectrum is 0.25 second. The Korean e-CALLISTO station was developed by Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) collaborating with Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) since 2007. In this paper, we report replacement of the tracking mount and development of the control program using Visual C++/MFC. The program can make the tracking mount track the Sun and schedule CALLISTO to start and to finish its observation automatically using the Solar Position Algorithm (SPA). Daily tracking errors (RMSE) are 0.0028 degree in azimuthal axis and 0.0019 degree in elevational axis between 2014 January and 2015 July. We expect that the program can save time and labor to make the observations of solar activity for space weather monitoring, and improve CALLISTO data quality due to the stable and precise tracking methods.
We have developed a data integration system for ground-based space weather facilities in Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). The data integration system is necessary to analyze and use ground-based space weather data efficiently, and consists of a server system and data monitoring systems. The server system consists of servers such as data acquisition server or web server, and storage. The data monitoring systems include data collecting and processing applications and data display monitors. With the data integration system we operate the Space Weather Monitoring Lab (SWML) where real-time space weather data are displayed and our ground-based observing facilities are monitored. We expect that this data integration system will be used for the highly efficient processing and analysis of the current and future space weather data at KASI.
KASI (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute) has developed an SLR (Satellite Laser Ranging) system since 2008. The name of the development program is ARGO (Accurate Ranging system for Geodetic Observation). ARGO has a wide range of applications in the satellite precise orbit determination and space geodesy research using SLR with mm-level accuracy. ARGO-M (Mobile, bistatic 10 cm transmitting/40 cm receiving telescopes) and ARGO-F (Fixed stationary, about 1 m transmitting/receiving integrated telescope) SLR systems development will be completed by 2014. In 2011, ARGO-M system integration was completed. At present ARGO-M is in the course of system calibration, functionality, and performance tests. It consists of six subsystems, OPS (Optics System), TMS (Tracking Mount System), OES (Opto-Electronic System), CDS (Container-Dome System), LAS (Laser System) and AOS (ARGO Operation System). In this paper, ARGO-M system structure and integration status are introduced and described.
KASI and Seoul National University developed the Fast Imaging Solar Spectrograph (FISS) as one of major scientific instruments for the 1.6 m New Solar Telescope (NST) and installed it in the Coude room of the NST at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in May, 2010. The major objective of the FISS is to study the fine-scale structures and dynamics of plasma in the photosphere and chromosphere. To achieve it, the FISS is required to take data with a spectral resolution higher than 105 at the spectrograph mode and a temporal resolution less than 10 seconds at the imaging mode. The FISS is a spectrograph using Echelle grating and has characteristics that can observe dual bands (Hα and CaII 8542) simultaneously and perform fast imaging using fast raster scan and two fast CCD cameras. In this paper, we introduce briefly the whole process of FISS development from the requirement analysis to the first observations.
We have performed the flat-fielding correction for the Hα full-disk monitoring system of KASI (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute), which is installed in the Solar Flare Telescope (SOFT) at the top of Bohyun Mountain. For this, we used a new method developed by Chae (2004), to determine the flat pattern from a set of relatively shifted images. Using this method, we successfully obtained the flat pattern for Hα full-disk observations and compared our result with the image observed in Catania Astrophysical Observatory. The method that we used in this study seems to be quite powerful to obtain the flat image for solar observations. In near future, we will apply this method for the flat-fielding correction of all solar imaging instruments in KASI.
We have successfully developed the KASI (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute) Solar Imaging Spectrograph (KSIS), which has been originally upgraded from the KASI solar spectrograph that was able to record solar spectra for a given slit region and to inspect the response function of narrow band filters. A prototype KSIS was developed in 2004 by using a scanning mirror in front of the spectrograph slit and a SBIG ST-8XE CCD camera. Its main disadvantage is that it took a long time (about 13 minutes) to scan a whole active region. In this work, we have upgraded the KSIS by installing a much faster Dalsa 1M15 CCD camera, which gives a data acquisition time of about 2.5 minutes. The software for KSIS was also improved for the new CCD camera on the basis of component-based development method. We have successfully made a test observation for a simple and small active region (AR10910) using the improved KSIS system. Our observations show that H-alpha images for several wavelengths have typical features in a sunspot as well as a H-alpha centerline image is quite similar to a BBSO H-alpha image, demonstrating the capability of the KSIS system.