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 analyzed the comet records in the Korean history books: Samguksagi, Goryeosa, and Joseonwangjosillok. For a comparison, the Chinese and Japanese comet records collected by Kronk (1999) have also been analyzed. Power spectrum of the time series of the comet records is used to find periodic comets. Statistically significant periodicities in the power spectrum are detected at the periods of 38-40 years, about 76 years, and 300-400 years for all Korean, Chinese, and Japanese comet records. We have also calculated the past orbits of some comets that have been recently observed, to check whether or not they were recorded in the history books. We use a multistep method to numerically integrate the comet's orbital motion backward in time to 51 B.C. The gravitational force due to the Sun and the nine planets, non-gravitational force, and the relativistic effects have been considered. Comparison of comet's perihelion passage time and the position on the sky with the historical records shows that the comet Halley were recorded at every passage in both Goryeo and Joseon periods. The orbital motion of the comet Pons-Brooks has also been compared with the Korean records. For the comet Tempel-Tuttle, Swift-Tuttle, and Ikeya-Zhang, we have compared our calculation of the orbital motions with those of the previous studies.