A giant jellyfish (Nemopilema nomurai), which is presumed developing in the East China Sea, is recently one of major issues in the Northeast Asia region due to its fatal damage to the fishery. The biomass estimates have generally been conducted by trawl sampling and sighting survey methods. The biological research is also needed to clarify such environmental origin or diurnal migration patterns. While trawl sampling or sighting survey methods are effective to investigate its density estimates in its distributed community of near bottom or surface, they have a problem in investigation on the vertical distribution of jellyfishes. In this case, an echo sounding detection would have an advantage to survey it more extensively and effectively. This trial was conducted to observe the vertical distribution of giant jellyfish, where thermocline strongly formed, during mooring at each station of the East China Sea and southern coastal area using acoustical and optical methods. By the results, they were observed to exit and move at the water column under the thermocline using the optical camera and echo sounder system, and the information was analyzed to find out the acoustical sound scattering characteristics relatives to 120kHz frequency. These results can be utilized effectively to estimate the vertical distribution and biomass of Giant jellyfish with comparing results from trawl sampling and sighting survey methods, hereafter.

An imaging spectrograph concept optimized for extended far-ultraviolet emission sources is presented. Although the design was originally developed for FIMS aboard the first Korean science satellite STSAT-l launched on September 27, 2003, no rigorous theoretical background of the spectrograph design has been published. The spectrograph design employs an off-axis parabolic cylinder mirror in front of a slit that guides lights to a diffraction grating. The concave grating provides moderate spatial resolution over a large field of view. This mapping capability is absent in most astronomical instruments but is crucial to the understanding of the nature of a variety of astrophysical phenomena. The aberration theory presented in this paper can be extended to holographic gratings in order to improve the spatial as well as the spectral resolutions.

A strategy is needed for a regional survey of geosynchronous orbits (GSOs) to monitor known space objects and detect uncataloged space objects. On the basis of the Inter-Agency Debris Committee’s recommendation regarding the protected region of geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO), target satellites with perigee and apogee of GEO ± 200 km and various inclinations are selected for analysis. The status of the GSO region was analyzed using the satellite distribution based on the orbital characteristics in publicly available two-line element data. Natural perturbation effects cause inactive satellites to drift to two stable longitudinal points. Active satellites usually maintain the designed positions as a result of regular or irregular maneuver operations against their natural drift. To analyze the detection rate of a single optical telescope, 152 out of 412 active satellites and 135 out of 288 inactive satellites in the GSO region were selected on the basis of their visibility at the observation site in Daejeon, Korea. By using various vertical view ranges and various numbers of observations of the GSO region, the detection efficiencies were analyzed for a single night, and the numbers of follow-up observations were determined. The orbital estimation accuracies were also checked using the arc length and number of observed data points to maintain the GSO satellite catalog.

We estimated the orbit of the Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS), a Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellite, through data from actual optical observations using telescopes at the Sobaeksan Optical Astronomy Observatory (SOAO) of the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI), Optical Wide field Patrol (OWL) at KASI, and the Chungbuk National University Observatory (CNUO) from August 1, 2014, to January 13, 2015. The astrometric data of the satellite were extracted from the World Coordinate System (WCS) in the obtained images, and geometrically distorted errors were corrected. To handle the optically observed data, corrections were made for the observation time, light-travel time delay, shutter speed delay, and aberration. For final product, the sequential filter within the Orbit Determination Tool Kit (ODTK) was used for orbit estimation based on the results of optical observation. In addition, a comparative analysis was conducted between the precise orbit from the ephemeris of the COMS maintained by the satellite operator and the results of orbit estimation using optical observation. The orbits estimated in simulation agree with those estimated with actual optical observation data. The error in the results using optical observation data decreased with increasing number of observatories. Our results are useful for optimizing observation data for orbit estimation.

An algorithm to automatically extract coordinate and time information from optical observation data of geostationary orbit satellites (GEO satellites) or geosynchronous orbit satellites (GOS satellites) is developed. The optical wide-field patrol system is capable of automatic observation using a pre-arranged schedule. Therefore, if this type of automatic analysis algorithm is available, daily unmanned monitoring of GEO satellites can be possible. For data acquisition for development, the COMS1 satellite was observed with 1-s exposure time and 1-m interval. The images were grouped and processed in terms of “action”, and each action was composed of six or nine successive images. First, a reference image with the best quality in one action was selected. Next, the rest of the images in the action were geometrically transformed to fit in the horizontal coordinate system (expressed in azimuthal angle and elevation) of the reference image. Then, these images were median-combined to retain only the possible non-moving GEO candidates. By reverting the coordinate transformation of the positions of these GEO satellite candidates, the final coordinates could be calculated.