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 MNUV < - 18.4 AB mag and have high probabilities of hosting SNe (0.06 SN 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 0.1 R. 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 fields (16 in IMSNG galaxies) over 5 years, confirming our SN rate estimate of 0.06 SN yr-1 per galaxy.

To perform imaging observations of optically red objects such as high redshift quasars and brown dwarfs, the Center for the Exploration of the Origin of the Universe (CEOU) recently developed an optical CCD camera, Camera for QUasars in EArly uNiverse (CQUEAN), which is sensitive at 0.7-1.1 μm. To enable observations with long exposures, we develop an auto-guiding system for CQUEAN. This system consists of an off-axis mirror, a baffle, a CCD camera, a motor and a differential decelerator. To increase the number of available guiding stars, we design a rotating mechanism for the off-axis guiding camera. The guiding field can be scanned along the 10 arcmin ring offset from the optical axis of the telescope. Combined with the auto-guiding software of the McDonald Observatory, we confirm that a stable image can be obtained with an exposure time as long as 1200 seconds.