We introduce and describe performance of the 6-meter telescope of Seoul Radio Astronomy Observatory (SRAO). All the softwares and instruments except the antenna structure and its driving system are developed for ourselves. The SIS mixer type receiver resulted in the receiver noise temperature less than 50 K (DSB) over the whole 3-mm radio window. An autocorrelation spectrometer, developed first in Korea, provides maximum 50 MHz band width over 1024 channels. Antenna surface is measured and adjusted using template method and radio holography which resulted in a superb surface accuracy bet-ter than 30μm. Accordingly, the aperture and beam efficiences amount to 70% and 75%, respectively, largely independent of frequency in the 85 - 115 GHz range. It is also found that telescope pointing errors are less than 10" in both azimuth and elevation and that antenna gain is almost constant against elevation greater than 20°, without adjusting sub-reflector position. The SRAO 6-meter telescope is now fully operational and all these characteristics verify that observations are carried out with high precision and fidelity.

We have studied the nonlinear evolution of a magnetized disk of isothermal gas, which is sustained by its self-gravity. Our objective is to investigate how the Jeans, Parker, and convective instabilities compete with each other in structuring/de-structuring large scale condensations in such disk. The Poisson equation for the self-gravity has been solved with a fourth-order accurate Fourier method along with the Green function, and the MHD part has been handled by an isothermal TVD code. When large wavelength perturbations are applied, the combined action of the Jeans and Parker instabilities suppresses the development of the convection and forms a dense core of prolate shape in the mid-plane. Peripheral structures around it are filamentary. The low density filaments connect the dense core to the diffuse upper region. On the other hand, when small wavelength perturbations are applied, the disk develops into an equilibrium state which is reminiscent of the Mouschovias's 2-D non-linear equilibrium of the classical Parker instability under an externally given gravity.

Various assumptions used in interpreting the observations of hydrogen recombination lines are critically assessed to confirm the gradient of electron temperature with distance from the galactic center. The total temperature increase from 5 to 13 kpc is about 2,500 K. Among many suggestions, we have singled out the decrease of trace dement abundances with the galactoccntric distance as the most viable cause for the temperature gradient. This will impose an important constraint on evolutionary models of the Galaxy.

Temperature history of very small interstellar dust particles is followed under diffuse interstellar radiation. Because of extremely small thermal capacities of these grains with sizes ranging from a few tens to hundred Angstroms in radii, they are to experience strong fluctuations in temperature whenever they are hit by interstellar ultraviolet photons. Fluctuating temperature can inhibit these smaller component of interstellar dust from growing into core-mantle particles of submicron sizes by continuously evaporating atoms and molecules adsorbed on their surface. This is interpreted as a possible physical reason for the bimodal nature in grain size distribution. A brief discussion is also given to the far infrared emission properties of such small grains in diffuse interstellar dust clouds.

Although Serkowski used a single value K=1.15 in representing all the observed interstellar linear polarization curves by his empirical relation p ( λ ) / P m a x =exp (-K 1 n 2 ( λ m a x / λ ) ), where p m a x is the maximum polarization at wavelength λ m a x , we have noticed a meaningful variation in K from observations of 72 stars. By comparing K's with P m a x / E B − V a n d w i t h λ m a x , we have examined how the shape of the polarization curve is related with the degree of grain alignment on one hand, and with grain sizes on the other. We have shown that correlations between K, P m a x / E B − V a n d w i t h λ m a x , are consistent with the idea of Davis-Greenstein mechanism for grain alignment.