[asac] demonstration science: comments

[Munetake MOMOSE]

Dear Chris, 

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:15:46 -0400 (EDT), Christine Wilson wrote:
>
> If you have any additional comments on the text on demonstration science
> which I circulated by email on Aug 2 (with additional information sent on
> Aug 3), please send them to me by Monday, August 22.

Thank you for your effort on your work on Charge 2. Basically I agree 
with the general points described in your summery. Apology for my 
delayed respond, but there are two comments:

1) I agree that Science Verification or demonstration science at very 
early phase (with 6-8 antennas) should be important for both the 
astronomical community and general public to present the ALMA's 
outstanding capability at high frequencies. Although the obtained 
images at this phase will not be so "pretty" as one (a 
non-astronomer) can imagine, these will have fairly high publicity, I 
believe, if we explain carefully that the ALMA with 6-8 antennas is 
still in its very "infant" phase.

In addition to the above point, it may also be important to carry out 
"demonstration sciences" at some later phase (16-25 antennas?) to 
present the supreme "imaging" capability. Eye-catching images for 
general public will easily be obtained with a larger number of 
antennas, but more importantly, it will be critical to show at some 
appropriate point that the ALMA can get very good images without any 
special expertise to non-radio astronomers. 

Since the performance of the ALMA will dramatically be improved 
during its construction, which  will be quite different from other 
instrument's cases, several steps may be required to demonstrate it 
accordingly. 

2) I believe demonstration science of the ACA will also be necessary 
to clearly show its efficacy to astronomers who are not familiar with 
radio interferometry. Although we will probably not have any time to 
discuss this issue in the next face-to-face meeting, it should be 
kept in our mind and be discussed in the near future. 

Best wishes, 
Munetake

 Munetake MOMOSE
<momose at mx.ibaraki.ac.jp>