Aims: Our primary goal is to search for planets around intermediate mass stars. We are also interested in studying the nature of radial velocity (RV) variations of K giant stars. Methods: We selected about 55 early K giant (K0 - K4) stars brighter
than fifth magnitude that were observed using BOES, a high resolution spectrograph attached to the 1.8 m telescope at BOAO (Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory). BOES is equipped with $I_2$ absorption cell for high precision RV measurements. Results: We detected a periodic radial velocity variations in the K0 III star gam1leo with a period of P = 429 days. An orbital fit of the observed RVs yields a period of P = 429 days, a semi-amplitude of K = 208 mps, and an eccentricity of e = 0.14. To investigate the nature of the RV variations, we analyzed the photometric, CaII $lambda$ 8662 equivalent width, and line-bisector variations of gam1leo. We conclude that the detected RV variations can be best explained by a planetary companion with an estimated mass of m $sin i = 8.78 M_{Jupiter}$ and a semi-major axis of $a = 1.19$ AU, assuming a stellar mass of 1.23 Msun.
We present a high resolving power ($lambda$ / $Deltalambda$ = 90,000) and high signal-to-noise ratio ($sim$700) spectral atlas of Vega covering the 3850 -- 6860 AA wavelength range. The atlas is a result of averaging of spectra recorded with the aid
of the echelle spectrograph BOES fed by the 1.8-m telescope at Bohyunsan observatory (Korea). The atlas is provided only in machine-readable form (electronic data file) and will be available in the SIMBAD database upon publication.
We present a first results from a long-term program of a radial velocity study of Cepheid Polaris (F7 Ib) aimed to find amplitude and period of pulsations and nature of secondary periodicities. 264 new precise radial velocity measurements were obtain
ed during 2004-2007 with the fiber-fed echelle spectrograph Bohyunsan Observatory Echelle Spectrograph (BOES) of 1.8m telescope at Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory (BOAO) in Korea. We find a pulsational radial velocity amplitude and period of Polaris for three seasons of 2005.183, 2006.360, and 2007.349 as 2K = 2.210 +/- 0.048 km/s, 2K = 2.080 +/- 0.042 km/s, and 2K = 2.406 +/- 0.018 km/s respectively, indicating that the pulsational amplitudes of Polaris that had decayed during the last century is now increasing rapidly. The pulsational period was found to be increasing too. This is the first detection of a historical turnaround of pulsational amplitude change in Cepheids. We clearly find the presence of additional radial velocity variations on a time scale of about 119 days and an amplitude of about +/- 138 m/s, that is quasi-periodic rather than strictly periodic. We do not confirm the presence in our data the variation on a time scale 34-45 days found in earlier radial velocity data obtained in 80s and 90s. We assume that both the 119 day quasi-periodic, noncoherent variations found in our data as well as 34-45 day variations found before can be caused by the 119 day rotation periods of Polaris and by surface inhomogeneities such as single or multiple spot configuration varying with the time.
We introduce a new polarimeter installed on the high-resolution fiber-fed echelle spectrograph (called BOES) of the 1.8-m telescope at the Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory, Korea. The instrument is intended to measure stellar magnetic fields w
ith high-resolution (R $sim$ 60000) spectropolarimetric observations of intrinsic polarization in spectral lines. In this paper we describe the spectropolarimeter and present test observations of the longitudinal magnetic fields in some well-studied F-B main sequence magnetic stars (m_v < 8.8^m). The results demonstrate that the instrument has a high precision ability of detecting the fields of these stars with typical accuracies ranged from about 2G to a few tens of gauss.
