From lappel at nrao.edu Tue Sep 9 13:13:52 2008 From: lappel at nrao.edu (Lori Appel) Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:13:52 -0600 Subject: [Vlavlbausers] EVLA Workshop - "The EVLA Vision: Galaxies Through Cosmic TIme" Message-ID: <48C6AED0.10208@aoc.nrao.edu> The EVLA Vision: Galaxies through Cosmic Time NRAO announces the first in a series of workshops for exploring the wide range of science questions in which the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) will be a pivotal instrument. We will bring together astronomers from across the electromagnetic spectrum to start exploring these questions. "The EVLA Vision: Galaxies through Cosmic Time" will be held in Socorro, New Mexico, on December 16 - 18, 2009. Please see the web page http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/events/galform/ for more details and registration information. Jacqueline van Gorkom for the Scientific Organizing Committee From lappel at nrao.edu Tue Sep 9 14:07:58 2008 From: lappel at nrao.edu (Lori Appel) Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:07:58 -0600 Subject: [Vlavlbausers] EVLA Workshop - "The EVLA Vision: Galaxies Through Cosmic TIme" Message-ID: <48C6BB7E.30003@aoc.nrao.edu> *Revised announcement* The original announcement mistakenly said the date of the workshop was 2009, the correct date is December 16-18, 2008. The EVLA Vision: Galaxies through Cosmic Time NRAO announces the first in a series of workshops for exploring the wide range of science questions in which the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) will be a pivotal instrument. We will bring together astronomers from across the electromagnetic spectrum to start exploring these questions. "The EVLA Vision: Galaxies through Cosmic Time" will be held in Socorro, New Mexico, on December 16 - 18, 2008. Please see the web page http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/events/galform/ for more details and registration information. Jacqueline van Gorkom for the Scientific Organizing Committee From lappel at nrao.edu Tue Sep 16 20:25:42 2008 From: lappel at nrao.edu (Lori Appel) Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:25:42 -0600 Subject: [Vlavlbausers] News for VLA/VLBA/HSA Proposers Message-ID: <48D04E86.4010605@aoc.nrao.edu> News for VLA/VLBA/HSA Proposers, September 16, 2008 This posting may also be read on the web at http://www.vla.nrao.edu/astro/guides/news This "News" posting contains the following sections General news * Support for PhD dissertations using NRAO facilities * Large proposals News for VLA proposers * General observing capabilities * 74 MHz observing in the BnA and B configurations * EVLA impact and availability News for VLBA/HSA/VLBI proposers * Regular proposal deadline is 2008 Oct 1 for trimester 2009-T1 * VLBA or HSA Proposals * VLBA Observational Status Summary * Proposals involving the EVN * Global 3mm VLBI Proposals ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. General News a. Support for PhD dissertations using NRAO facilities Students planning to use an NRAO telescope for their PhD dissertation (particularly if more than one proposal will be required) should submit a "Plan of Dissertation Research" of no more than 1000 words with their first proposal. This plan can be referred to in later proposals. At a minimum it should contain a thesis time line and an estimate of the level of NRAO telescope resources needed. The plan provides some assurance against a dissertation being impaired by adverse referee comments on one proposal, when the referees do not see the full scope of the project. This requirement applies to all three of the NRAO major instruments: VLA, VLBA and GBT. b. Large proposals Large proposals to use NRAO instruments will be accepted at the October 1, 2008, proposal deadline, and at all subsequent proposal deadlines. There will no longer be separate, annual, calls for large proposals. The definition of "large" and other policy issues relating to the submission of large proposals is described in the Large Proposal Policy (http://www.nrao.edu/administration/directors_office/largeprop.shtml). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. News for VLA Proposers a. General observing capabilities The 1 October 2008 deadline is for the BnA (currently scheduled between 23 January 2009 and 9 February 2009) and B configurations (scheduled between 13 February 2009 and 18 May 2009). Proposals to use the reconfiguration time from the A configuration to the BnA configuration (12 January to 23 January 2008) and the reconfiguration from the BnA to the B configuration (9 February 2009 to 13 February 2009) will also be reviewed. Proposers are encouraged to consider proposals for projects that might fill gaps in the dynamic schedule, i.e., one or more short (1-2 hour) observations covering a variety of LSTs. We are currently considering a plan to reverse the order of the configuration cycles of the VLA/EVLA from the long-used D-> A-> B-> C-> D to D-> C-> B-> A-> D, beginning with the D configuration at the end of 2009, to facilitate correlator commissioning and early science with the EVLA. No decision has been taken as of this writing. For the 1 October 2008 proposal deadline all VLA proposers must use the NRAO Proposal Submission Tool (PST). A few minor modifications to the PST have been made and will be in place starting 12:00 EDT Wednesday, 17 September 2008, and accessible from NRAO Interactive Services (http://my.nrao.edu). The PST can now upload a Plan of Dissertation either within the Author's page for a specific proposal or from a student's profile under user preferences. For more details see the latest release notes (https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/Software/PSTReleaseNotesOct2008). The number of EVLA antennas continues to increase at a rate of one every two months. We have passed the point where more than half of the antennas in the array are EVLA antennas. This has at least two major consequences for users: (1) increased observing capabilities with extended tuning ranges available at L, C, and K bands, as described below; (2) revised observing and data reduction procedures are needed when using the "transition" system. These are described in some detail at the EVLA returns web page and are outlined briefly under "EVLA impact and availability" (section 2c(i)) below. New EVLA antennas will not be outfitted with 12 - 18 GHz (U band) receivers until the end of the construction project. The number of 15 GHz receivers in the array is therefore steadily declining as new EVLA antennas are added, and this should be taken into account in considerations of sensitivity, time requests, and uv-coverage. For continuum observations the use of EVLA antennas at 18 GHz (at the low frequency end of K-band) should be considered as an alternative to using the 15 GHz receivers (see section 2c(i) below). b. 74 MHz observing in the BnA and B configurations As described in the May 16, 2008 News for Proposers (and see EVLA Memo 123 at http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/evla/geninfo/memoseries/evlamemo123.pdf), we have determined that having the 74 MHz dipoles installed causes a temporal variation in the cross-polarization of order 1 - 2% at L-band (1.0 - 2.0 GHz) on all antennas, with a timescale of about 1hour. We will therefore assess whether to leave the 74 MHz dipoles mounted through BnA configuration and into B configuration when the relative pressure of 74 MHz and L-band polarimetry proposals has been established. c. EVLA impact and availability i. Short Term (March 2009 - August 2009) At the beginning of this period there will be 20 EVLA antennas in the array, rising to 23 in late summer 2009. A subset of the final WIDAR correlator should be undergoing tests at the VLA site. The availability of other hardware may limit the number of antennas available to the VLA correlator to 20 beginning at some point during this period. WIDAR commissioning and supported configurations may have an impact on both the amount of observing time and user support available during this period. As more EVLA antennas come on line, we continue to caution that users must be very careful in setting up and reducing their data in order to obtain the best science during the transition period. Issues that are important are described in detail at the EVLA returns (http://www.vla.nrao.edu/astro/guides/evlareturn/) web page. A few of the most important are summarized here: 1) Online Doppler tracking should be used only for projects employing only EVLA antennas, such as those making use of the extended EVLA tuning ranges. Online Doppler tracking should not be used if VLA-EVLA baselines are included in an experiment because of phase jumps on VLA-EVLA baselines introduced by the VLA Fluke synthesizers at any change in frequency or bandwidth. For the same reason, phase calibration must be included at any frequency or bandwidth change for observations using both VLA and EVLA antennas. 2) The use of narrow-bandwidth modes on EVLA-EVLA baselines is currently compromised by the aliasing of emission outside the band as described on the EVLA returns web page. Please consult this web page for latest information on post-processing compensation for the aliasing effect. This problem will go away once the WIDAR correlator is used for all antennas. 3) Some on-line flagging issues remain. In particular, there are some cases in which the first few records of a scan are actually data from the previous scan, but are not flagged by the online system. In addition, the first 10 - 20 seconds after a change of band is often bad and not flagged. Users should make sure to observe a calibration source after a band change. The origins of the problems are known, and software changes are underway to eliminate them. Until those software changes occur - and are tested - users should critically examine their data to find and flag such problems. Ka-band (26.5-40 GHz) receivers have begun to be installed on the EVLA antennas; currently there are two receivers on the array. After the number of Ka-band receivers passes five currently planned for November 2008), we plan to issue a call for shared-risk Ka-band proposals, probably around January 2009. This may take the form of a special call outside the normal proposal schedule. The number of Ka-band antennas should increase from nine to 14 during the March - August 2009 time period. Extended tuning ranges are available on EVLA antennas at L-band (1.0-2.0 GHz), C-band (4.2-7.7 GHz), and K-band (18.0-26.5 GHz). The ranges outside the nominal VLA frequencies for C and L band (especially the former) have poor sensitivity and polarization performance, as compared with the nominal VLA frequencies. Further details of the sensitivity as a function of frequency for these bands can be found at the EVLA returns page (http://www.vla.nrao.edu/astro/guides/evlareturn/) . In addition to the increased tuning ranges on the EVLA antennas it is now possible to tune the two IF pairs anywhere within the available C-band simultaneously. IFs separated by up to 4 GHz at K-band (18.0-26.5 GHz) and Q-band (40-50 GHz) are also possible. In the March - August 2009 time period, we expect that several new C-band receivers with newly designed ortho-mode transducers (OMTs) will be installed on the array. Currently there are two such receivers in the array, and there will be four by the end of October 2008. This number should increase from eight to 13 through the March - August 2009 period. Receivers with new OMTs will have better polarization performance and full sensitivity across the wide tuning bands. We also expect that in this time frame the installation of S-band (2-4 GHz) receivers will have begun on the EVLA and testing of this new observing capability will be underway. S-band receivers will be available for shared-risk observing when there are at least 5 available, currently anticipated for mid-late 2009. Note that JObserve cannot be used directly to make observe files for the new tuning ranges or for the new frequency bands (Ka and S). Users wishing to take advantage of the new tuning ranges of these new bands should check the EVLA returns web page for further information. A new observation preparation tool (OPT) is currently undergoing final testing, in preparation for observers who are successful for the shared-risk Ka -band call. The OPT will also be used for the EVLA+WIDAR in the long term; capabilities for WIDAR are currently being designed and implemented. ii. Medium Term (September 2009 - May 2010) By the end of 2009 approximately 24 EVLA antennas are scheduled to be available. It is likely that we will decommission the remaining VLA antennas in the array sometime during this term. Depending on how the WIDAR commissioning is progressing, the VLA correlator may also be decommissioned in this time frame. The configuration schedule may be modified during 2009 to accommodate WIDAR and other EVLA commissioning. Consideration is also being given to reversing the current order of VLA configurations (see "General observing capabilities", above). Users should not assume that the regular configuration cycle will necessarily be maintained throughout 2009. iii. Long Term (2010 - 2012) In late 2010, the primary EVLA retrofit will be completed, although not all the frequency bands will be installed on all antennas. The wide-band K, Q, Ka, and C band receiver systems are expected to be completed by this time. Open shared-risk observing is expected to begin in 2011 using the full WIDAR correlator. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. News For VLBA/HSA/VLBI Proposers a. Proposal Deadline is 2008 Oct 1 for Trimester 2009-T1 This deadline applies to regular observing proposals requesting - the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), alone or with affiliate(s) http://www.vlba.nrao.edu/astro/ - the High Sensitivity Array (HSA) http://www.nrao.edu/HSA/ - the European VLBI Network (EVN) http://www.evlbi.org/ - Global cm VLBI (EVN+VLBA) in the Feb/Mar session - Global 3mm VLBI in the May session http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/div/vlbi/globalmm/ This deadline also applies to large observing proposals requesting the VLBA, alone or with other NRAO resources. http://www.nrao.edu/administration/directors_office/largeprop.shtml b. VLBA or HSA Proposals Proposal preparation and submission are via the NRAO Interactive Services http://my.nrao.edu/ . For the 1 October 2008 deadline, VLBA/HSA proposals may *only* be submitted using the online proposal submission tool. VLBA/HSA proposals may *not* be submitted via the LaTex template and e-mail. Students planning to use an NRAO telescope for their PhD dissertation must submit a "Plan of Dissertation Research" of no more than 1000 words with their first proposal. At a minimum it should contain a thesis timeline and an estimate of the level of NRAO telescope resources needed. The plan can be submitted via the NRAO Interactive Services http://my.nrao.edu/ . c. VLBA Observational Status Summary NRAO has produced an updated version of its comprehensive document "VLBA Observational Status Summary". Significant changes include a revision of the 22 GHz sensitivity values based on the recently completed upgrade funded by MPIfR; new values for the continuum sensitivity at 23.8 GHz, slightly off the water line; and updated information on recording and correlator systems. The updated document can be found in html http://www.vlba.nrao.edu/astro/obstatus/current/ pdf http://www.vlba.nrao.edu/astro/obstatus/current/obssum.pdf or ps http://www.vlba.nrao.edu/astro/obstatus/current/obssum.ps formats. d. Proposals Involving the EVN For all classes of proposals involving the EVN, *only* the on-line tool NorthStar http://proposal.jive.nl should be used to prepare and submit proposals. This includes Global cm VLBI (EVN+VLBA) proposals. e. Global 3mm VLBI Proposals Proposal preparation is via the LaTeX template http://www.nrao.edu/administration/directors_office/vlba-gvlbi.shtml . Proposal submission is via e-mail to propsoc at nrao.edu and propvlbi at mpifr-bonn.mpg.de.