[mmaimcal] FYI: 25 Sept 2006 BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
Alwyn Wootten
awootten at nrao.edu
Fri Sep 29 04:47:06 EDT 2006
Folks,
Comments, corrections, or criticisms welcome.
Al
BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
25 September 2006 - 9 October 2006
******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT****************************
Two GBT instruments which have substantial synergies with ALMA were tested
this week.
* First light was achieved on Saturn with the GBT at 3mm
using the Penn Array Receiver, a 64-pixel continuum imaging system for the
3mm band. The project is a collaboration of the University of Pennsylvania,
NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center and the NRAO.
* The 'z-machine' Zpectrometer was tested on the Ka band receiver
with enouraging results. The project is a collaboration with the
University of Maryland.
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Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html
See also the JAO ALMA Calendar overview at:
http://www.alma.cl/alma_project
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General Happenings
Sky: With Venus and Mars lost in the solar glare, Jupiter fading in the
southwest and Saturn rising in the east before and during dawn, the skies
lack bright planets now.
Santiago: A decision was made for the permanent ALMA offices to be built
on the ESO grounds.
AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Completion of design and
engineering of the changed AOS antenna station layout, interconnecting
road system and power and Fiber Optic distribution, by M3 Engineering;
interaction with M. Holdaway for extended configuration definition.
OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): Holography tower and AIV
building construction are under way. VVMO started excavation works at the
OSF and has scheduled to complete those by mid-October. VxRSI Site
Erection Facility construction contract signing planned for week of
September 25. The ALMA contractors’ camp capacity is exhausted. Currently
there are approximately 166 persons working at the site of which
approximately 140 uses the ALMA and Contractor’s lodging facilities.
NAASC: Antenna: Invar cone completed precision machining; Yoke is
completed including stress relief and will be transported for precision
machining week of 25Sept; Support cone completed and in process of final
machining. Nutator bidder selected. A face-to-face meeting of the
Operations Group was held in Arcetri. An ASAC face to face meeting was
held in Florence. DRSP2.0 is in the final week before submissions close.
NTC: Sep 27 Provisional Acceptance In-house (PAI) of the first B6 (1.3mm)
cartridge. A Band 6 cartridge was installed in Cryostat #2 for cold load
calibration checks. The PAI of Band 9 (.45mm) Cartridge #1 will be held
2006-10-17/18 at SRON.
Paper on the 'ALMA Correlator' has been accepted for publication in
Astronomy & Astrophysics (Section on Instruments). A kickoff meeting with
ESO on Production Tunable Filter Bank (TFB) cards at Observatoire de
Bordeaux was held on 21th September.
SMA: The prototype WVRs will be removed from the SMA and shipped back to
EU in Oct. 2006. Interface testing to the computing sub-system and some
lab testing on the cold load will be performed there.
HIA: Provisional Acceptance In-house for the first delivered B3 (3mm)
cartridge (serial #2) was held at HIA on Sep 21
AOC: As scheduled pre-production run of 100 AMBSI-1s are available. A
modest effort to test ALMA's dynamic scheduler in simulation has started.
Napier will chair the Vertex antenna P2DR; document and RID review is
underway.
ATF: The currently proposed move date of ALMA prototype system from the
AOC lab to the AEC antenna is now Oct 16 and the currently proposed move
date for the proto-correlator and central LO is now Oct 23. The Alcatel
prototype antenna cannot be moved to the maintenance stow position,
zenith, although a replacement power supply for the ACU computer has
arrived and this should be remedied momentarily. The power supply has been
shipped. The holography system #1 was received at the ATF. The
transmitter was then installed on the tower at the ATF; the receiver will
be installed on the Vertex antenna shortly. Computing and AVI groups
started initial verification and installation of the hardware and
software. Preliminary holography testing at the ATF is scheduled for the
week of Sep 25. Temporary antenna racks have been removed from the Vertex
antenna in preparation for installation of prototype racks; prototype
racks will be installed after holography tests have been completed.
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DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT ) see
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
Mon 25 Sep - Patriot's Day, US
Sheng-Yuan Liu, Taiwan Project Scientist, visiting NAASC
Tue 26 Sep
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
Wed 27 Sep
All Day: Band 6 Provisional Acceptance In-House, NTC
All Day: VxRSI PPDR, Essen, Germany
Thu 28 Sep
All Day: VxRSI PPDR, Essen, Germany
Fri 29 Sep
All Day: ANASAC Meeting, Charlottesville
1:30 pm: Astrochemistry Seminar, U. Va.: Rick Suenram, Brooks Pate and
Kevin Lehmann "Laboratory Spectroscopy at U. Va."
All Day: VxRSI PPDR, Essen, Germany
Sat 30 Sep - First quarter moon
All Day: ANASAC meeting, Charlottesville
Sun 1 Oct
Mon 2 Oct
Tue 3 Oct - Holiday Germany -- Day of German Unity
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
Wed 4 Oct
Thu 5 Oct
Fri 6 Oct
Sat 7 Oct
Sun 8 Oct
Mon 9 Oct
All Day: WVR Workshop, Wettzell, Germany
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ****************************
Sept 27-29 Vertex RSI PPDReview Essen
Sept 29-30 all day ANASAC face-to-face CV
Oct 8 - 11 all day WVR Workshop Wettzell, Bavaria
Oct 16 Move of PSI to ATF
November 8-10 all day ALMA Board Meeting Madrid
Nov 13-17 all day Science with ALMA: a new era for Astrophysics Madrid
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ****************************
ALMA Memo #557: Thermal Deformation of Shaped Carbon Fiber-Aluminum Core
Sandwiched Structures
by Jingquan Cheng Date:2006-09-14
Thermal deformations of T-shaped, L-shaped and channel shaped structures
are discussed. The work shows that the deformation could become significant
for precison instruments if the width of the top plate is more than 1 m.
It also shows that using CFRP beams or tubes to connect the top and the
bottom skins of the top sandwiched plate is not a helpful practice. The
resultant deformation will be worse than that of the bottom surface of
the top plate.
View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #557.
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma557/memo557.pdf
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ALMA Memo #558: Thermal Deformation of Shaped Carbon Fiber-Aluminium
Core Sandwiched Structures(II)
Jingquan Cheng 2006-08-14
Thermal deformation of T-shaped, L-shaped and channel shaped structures
are discussed in the previous report. The work here shows that the
computer analysis with smaller element size is consistant with the
prediction. It also shows that over-constraint usually produces larger
thermal deforamtion.
View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #558.
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma558/memo558.pdf
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ALMA Memo #559: Thermal Deformation of Shaped Carbon Fiber-Aluminium
Core Sandwiched Structures(III)
Jingquan Cheng 2006-09-14
Thermal deformation of an L-shaped structures is discussed in detail.
Two different approximations have been made in estimating the angular
change of the structure. The first order approximation formulae give
upper and lower limits of the angular change, while the second order
approximation gives a better estimate. The computer analysis also
shows that the deformation is support condition dependent.
View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #559.
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma559/memo559.pdf
******************************ALSO OF INTEREST*****************************
ALMA PROJECT SCIENTIST
The ALMA Project Scientist is responsible for ensuring that ALMA is
constructed and commissioned in such a manner as to meet the scientific
requirements of the ALMA Agreement. As a Key Staff Member of the JAO, the
Project Scientist will contribute to decision making, overall policy
development and strategic planning. The Project Scientist reports directly
to the ALMA Director and interacts closely with the Project Manager and
Project Engineer.
Please see:
http://www.nrao.edu/administration/personnel_office/careers.shtml#CL0005
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CARMA (Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy)
FIRST CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Deadline: 14 October 2006
Proposals for observations using CARMA at 3 mm in the C and D
configurations (beamsizes 1.8 and 4 arcseconds respectively) during
the period 1 January to 30 June 2007 are due on 14 October 2006.
CARMA is the merger of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory millimeter
array and the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association array, and
comprises 15 antennas on a 2200m elevation site, Cedar Flat, in the
Inyo Mountains of California.
CARMA is operated by the Universities of California (Berkeley),
Illinois, and Maryland, and the California Institute of Technology,
under a cooperative agreement with the University Radio Observatory
program of the National Science Foundation. Approximately 30% of the
observing time will be awarded to PIs outside the partner
universities.
Proposals should be submitted using the electronic form at
http://carma.astro.uiuc.edu/proposals/ before 17:00 CDT 14 October,
2006. Detailed information, including sensitivities and proposal
submission instructions, may be found at the CARMA website,
http://www.mmarray.org. Questions may also be addressed to Dr. Douglas
Bock (dbock at mmarray.org).
There will in the future be twice yearly calls for 1 and 3 mm in all
antenna configurations.
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Jansky Fellowship
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) announces the 2007
postdoctoral Jansky Fellowship program that provides outstanding
opportunities for research in astronomy. The Jansky Fellows formulate
and carry out investigations either independently or in collaboration
with others within the wide framework of interests of the Observatory.
Prior radio experience is not required and multi-wavelength projects
leading to a synergy with NRAO instruments are encouraged. The NRAO also
encourages applications from candidates with interest in radio astronomy
instrumentation, computation, and theory.
Please see:
http://www.nrao.edu/administration/directors_office/jansky-postdocs.shtml
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Research Associate position in Department of Physics University of Cambridge
Radiometric Phase Correction for ALMA
Closing date: 30 September 2006
Limit of tenure: 31 December 2010
The Astrophysics Group of the Department of Physics, University of
Cambridge, invites applications for a postdoctoral research associate
to work on radiometric phase correction techniques, algorithms and
software development for ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimetre Array.
The Group conducts a broad programme of astrophysics research
involving instrumentation, observation, theory and modelling. This
post is funded by the European Union Framework 6 programme and ESO to
further the groupís leading role in the development of phase
correction techniques for ALMA. The work will involve analysis of
existing test data from our 183GHz radiometers, development of novel
algorithms for optimal phase correction, and implementation of these
algorithms within the ALMA software system. In addition, the
postholder may assist with the specification and commissioning of the
ALMA meteorological instruments required to support the radiometer
system.
The appointment will be on the Research Associate scale (currently
£23,457 - £30,607 per annum) at a level determined by skills and
experience. Expenses for travel associated with the project are
provided. The position is available immediately, and we hope the
successful applicant will be able to start in the very near future.
Further information may be obtained from: Mrs Karen Scrivener,
Astrophysics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, J J Thomson Avenue, Cambridge
CB3 0HE, tel: (01223) 337294 (karen at mrao.cam.ac.uk). Informal enquiries
may be made to Dr John Richer (jsr at mrao.cam.ac.uk). Applications should
contain a full CV and list of publications, together with the names and
contact details of two referees, a brief summary of research interests,
and a completed copy of the PD18 Cover Sheet (parts I and III only),
available from http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/personnel/forms/pd18/
The University is committed to equality of opportunity.
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Asian Radio Astronomy Winter School January 22-26, 2007
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan
Registration is open for the Asian Radio Astronomy Winter School.
Please visit the on-line registration page on our web site
(http://vsop.mtk.nao.ac.jp/RAWS2007/), and fill out all items in the
registration form. The deadline for registration *with financial support*
is October 6, 2006.
The final deadline for registration is November 3, 2006.
***************************************************************************
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