The First Generation Digitized Sky Survey (DSS-I) is a collection of digitized photographic atlases of the night sky taken from the Palomar Observatory (northen sky) and the Anglo-Australian Observatory (southern sky). DSS-I is widely used by the astronomical community for a number of applications including object cross-identification and astrometry. However, accessing and retrieving the actual images are nontrivial owing to the huge size (> 60 GB) of the dataset. To facilitate retrieval process of DSS-I data for the public, Korean Astronomical Data Center (KADC) developed a web application that provides not only data retrieval but also visualization functions. The web application consists of several modules developed using Java Applet, Jave Servlet, and JaveServer Pages (JSP) technologies. It allows users to retrieve images efficiently in various formats such as FITS, JPEG, GIF, and TIFF, and also offers an interactive visulization tool, ImgViewer, for displaying/analyzing FITS images. To use the web application, users require a Java-enabled web browser.

Construction of the Virtual Observatory (VO) is a great concern to the astronomical community in the 21st century. We present an outline of the concept and necessity of the va and the current status of various VO projects including the 15 national ones and the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA). We summarize the possible science cases that could be solved by using the VO data/tools, real science cases which are the results of using current VO tools, and our own work of using AstroGrid, the United Kingdom national VO, for a research on star formation history of galaxies.

We have constructed a database of Korean historical astronomical records. The database contains observational data recorded from BC 2183 to AD 1910. We have also built a webpage for searching through the database based on the following criteria: (1) dynasties (2) astronomical phenomena (3) reigning kings (4) references (5) keywords. Users may select two or more dynasties to search through the database for a certain phenomena, and compare data with those of other dynasties. The queried data can be primarily sorted by one critetion, and secondarily sorted by another, each in ascending or descending order. The search results give dates both in Solar and Lunisolar calendars, years and dates in Sexagenary cycle, dynasties, reigning kings, astronomical phenomena, and references. The database and webpage were constructed under the research project of the Korean Astronomical Data Center (KADC, http://kadc.kao.re.kr) in Korea Astronomy Observatory (KAO).

As a core project of the Korean Astronomical Data Center (KADC) in Korea Astronomy Observatory (KAO), we have constructed a framework of astronomical database using MySQL and JSP. MySQL database server is a powerful open source database management system, and JSP technology provides a simplified, fast way to create dynamic web content. Combined together, MySQL and JSP enable us to develop server-independent web-based applications efficiently in a short amount of time. The MySQL tables and JSP programs embedded in our database are built/written in a way to benefit both users and managers. We plan to expand our database by supplementing additional data in the near future. Our newly constructed database is expected to be the prototype of the Korean Virtual Observatory (KVO).