The Korea AeroSpace Administration and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) said on the 27th that the first-generation K-DRIFT, a domestically produced telescope to capture ultra–low-surface-brightness objects, succeeded in its first imaging observation. Ultra–low-surface-brightness objects are considered difficult targets to observe because they are thousands of times dimmer than the night-sky background.
K-DRIFT is short for "KASI Deep Rolling Imaging Fast Telescope," a device focused on sharply observing very faint objects by reducing internal scattered light in the telescope and lowering fluctuations in the background sky level.
The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) explained that although this first-generation model that secured the inaugural image is a small 0.5-meter-aperture optical telescope, it combines wide-field performance with technology specialized for ultra–low-surface-brightness to boost survey efficiency by about 20 times compared with previous systems. Its field of view is more than twice that of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (8.4-meter aperture), allowing it to observe an area equivalent to 100 full moons at once.
The research team led by Ko Jong-wan, a principal researcher at KASI who developed K-DRIFT, checked its performance with test observations at Bohyeonsan Observatory in June and recently installed it at El Sauce Observatory in Chile to obtain the first images.
After completing the ongoing test observations, the team plans to begin in earnest a survey of ultra–low-surface-brightness imaging targeting the southern night sky within the first half of the year. Based on these ground-based results, the team also plans to expand the research scope to developing a prototype of the "Korean wide-field space telescope," a KASI strategic research project, and to a deep-space all-sky imaging survey.
Kang Kyung-in, head of space science exploration at the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA), said, "K-DRIFT, developed purely with domestic technology, is significant in that it has secured foundational technology for ultra–low-surface-brightness observations," and added, "Based on successful ground-based observations, we will actively support building a research collaboration ecosystem so this can lead to the development of a space telescope for wide-field observations in space orbit."