We have constructed a wide-field photometric survey system called as the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet) in 2015. It consists of three 1.6 m optical telescopes equipped with mosaic CCD cameras. Four 9k CCDs were installed on the focal plane of each telescope. In this paper, we present the crosstalk analysis of the KMTNet mosaic CCD images. The crosstalk victims caused by bright sources were visible at eight sub-images obtained through different readout ports of each CCD. The crosstalk coefficients were estimated to be several tens of 10-4 in maximum, differing from sub-image to sub-image, and the non-linearity effect certainly appeared at the victims made from saturated sources. We developed software functions to correct the crosstalk effect of the KMTNet CCD images. The software functions showed satisfying results to remove clearly most of the crosstalk victims and have been implemented in the KMTNet image processing pipeline since 2015 September.

We develop a real-time data transfer system for the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet) photometry data and test whether it is suitable for Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) and three different observatories, which are Cerro Tololo Inter-Ameriacan Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, Siding Springs Observatory (SSO) in Australia, and South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in South Africa. For this test, we use a high speed global network being dedicated for researches. From the test, we obtain that the elapsed times between KASI and each three observatories, CTIO, SSO, and SAAO to transfer 650 MB of data are 99.0, 9.2, 119.0 seconds, respectively. This means that the system can be used for the real-time data processing of KMTNet.

We present an analysis of the papers published in the journals Nature and Science in the years from 2006 to 2010. During this period, 7788 papers in total were published in the two journals. This includes 544 astronomy papers that correspond to 7.0% of the papers in 'all' research fields and 18.9% of those in the field of 'physical sciences'. The sub-fields of research of the astronomy papers are distributed, in a descending order of the number of papers, in Solar System, stellar astronomy, galaxies and the universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, and exoplanets. The observational facilities used for the studies are mainly ground-based telescopes (31.1%), spacecrafts (27.0%), and space telescopes (22.8%), while 16.0% of papers did not use any noticeable facilities and 1.7% used other facilities. Korean scientists have published 86 papers (33 in Nature and 53 in Science), which is 1.10% of all the papers (N = 7788) in the two journals. The share of papers by Korean astronomers among the scientific papers by Koreans is 8.14%, slightly higher than the contribution of astronomy papers (7.0%) in both journals.

We have been performing a wide-field photometric monitoring program, named SPVS (Short-Period Variability Survey), at the Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory (BOAO). The observation system consists of a small refracting telescope (D = 155 mm, f = 1050 mm) and a 2k×3k CCD Camera. The field of view is 1.0°×1.5°. Detection limit is about V = 13 for short-period small amplitude variables such as δ Scuti-type pulsating stars, and about V = 15 for long-period large amplitude variables such as eclipsing binaries and RR Lyrae stars. The instrument is designed to be remote-controlled through internet. The primary purpose of this project is to search for variable objects in bright Galactic open clusters. We present results of test observations conducted towards NGC 7092.

Through time-series CCD photometry using a 155mm refractor, we found a new δ Scuti type variable star, HD 235428, near a known bright δ Scuti type star, DQ Cep. We performed follow-up observations using a 61cm telescope at Sobaeksan Optical Astronomy Observatory. Four frequencies have been derived by multiple-frequency analysis, which are 15.804, 5.498, 15.351 and 24.516cycle day−1 , respectively. V-amplitude of HD 235428 is ΔV = 0.026.

We developed an observation program for a 2K CCD camera, which was newly attached at the SOAO (Sobaeksan Optical Astronomy Observatory) 61cm telescope. The program was designed to control the telescope as well as the CCD camera and to monitor the CCD image quality, with very easy under the window-based graphical user interface (GUI). Furthermore, applying the automated differential photometric algorithm, we can obtain the instrumental magnitudes of several variable and comparison stars in real-time. Simultaneous photometry enables us to get precise differential magnitudes of variable stars even if the weather condition is not photometric. This new observation system has been using for many astronomical observations from September, 2001.