[mmaimcal] FYI: 12 Feb 2007 BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
Al Wootten
awootten at nrao.edu
Fri Feb 16 11:17:35 EST 2007
Folks:
Additions, comments please...
Al
BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
12 Feb 2007 - 28 Feb 2007
******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT***************************
The ESO Director General announced 14 Feb at the "State of ESO"
Annual meeting that the French Foreign Ministry had just sent her
confirmation of the its receipt of the Document that completes the
Spanish accession to ESO. He states that this was the last formality
to make Spain a "Full" member of ESO. At the 15 Feb ALMA Board telecon,
the DG welcomed Spain to ESO. Other Board members joined the welcome.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The President signed H.J.RES.20 on 15 Feb 2007, making further continuing
appropriations for the fiscal year 2007 through 30 Sept 2007.
Reportedly, this fully funds the President's request, including
increases for NSF. ALMA construction funding is included in the bill.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Continuing appropriations through 9/30/2007.
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
Photos of ALMA Construction activity may be found at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery/index.html
***************************************************************************
General Happenings
Sky: Saturn's current opposition is the best for several years, with the
planet heading for aphelion and its ring system moving toward low
inclination over the next few years. Venus climbs higher in the evening
sky as Mercury flees from sight. C/2006 P1 McNaught is fading through
magnitude 4 this period with a tail shrinking from ten degrees as it passes
through the constellation Indus.
Santiago: Planning continues for the Operations Plan reviews culminating
in Washington the week of 26 Feb, and for a meeting of the JAO and IPT leads,
to occur in Chile 9-12 March. Alvaro Leiva, ALMA Human Resources
Manager, has resigned his position within the Joint ALMA Observatory to
return to the private corporate sector of the Human Resources, from which
he developed his experience.
AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Snow and poor weather have
hampered observing the past week.
OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): Work continues on the
Vertex Site Erection Facility, the Operations Support Facility Technical
Building and Warehouse, and associated infrastructure from water tanks to
tennis court. Please see the photos at the link above. Cameras for
infrared rat monitoring program on the road are in hand. Currently there
are 387 persons working on the site.
ATF: Fringes from the holography transmitter through the receivers and
the system to the correlator were demonstrated on 9 February. The next
step is to achieve astronomical interferometry. Pointing of the antennas,
an important step toward that goal, continues.
AOC: ALMA Simulation Software testing occurred last week.
NTC (NRAO Technology Center, Charlottesville): A paper 'The ALMA Correlator'
has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 462, p. 801-810
(January 07 issue). Testing of correlator modes is making good progress.
Electromagnetic compatibility testing of the dewar with four front end
cartridges continues to produce good results.
NAASC: A calendar of NAASC events may be found at:
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/calendar/calendar.php
Reid and Brogan are participating in ALMA Simulation Software testing
and development.
A number of ALMA-related science discussions will occur during the
next fortnight:
16 February 4pm Molecular Astrophysics Discussion Group
Jarron Leisenring (UVa) "Constraining the Dust Condensation Sequence of
AGB stars in the LMC", and
Gail Zasowski (UVa) "Characteristics of Ices Around Low-Mass Protostars"
16 February 4pm Radford U. Physics Colloquium Al Wootten "ALMA"
22 February 4pm NRAO Colloquium Antonio Hales, NRAO "Probing the Environments
of Planet Formation"
23 February 4pm Star Formation Discussion Group TBA
Registration for the workshop 'Transformational Science with ALMA:
Through Disks to Stars and Planets' to be held 22-24 June 2007
is under way: See http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/disk07/
***************************************************************************
DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
Mon 12 Feb - Lincoln's Birthday
Tue 13 Feb -
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
4:00 PM-5:00 PM: NAScienceIPT teleconference
Wed 14 Feb - Valentine's Day
10:00AM: SSR Telecon
11:00AM: NA Board Telecaucus
Thu 15 Feb -
4:30pm: ALMA Board Telecon
Fri 16 Feb - Spitzer proposal deadline
Sat 17 Feb -
11:14AM: Full Moon
Sun 18 Feb -
Mon 19 Feb - President's Day (NRAO Holiday)
Tue 20 Feb -
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
Wed 21 Feb -
9:30AM: Science IPT Telecon
Thu 22 Feb - Washington's birthday
Fri 23 Feb -
Sat 24 Feb -
Sun 25 Feb -
Mon 26 Feb -
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ****************************
Feb 15 ALMA Board Telecon Telecon
Feb 27-8 all day ALMA Ops Plan Review NSF
Mar 1 all day ALMA/NAASC Plan Review NSF
Mar 7 ASAC Telecon
Mar 9 ANASAC Telecon
Mar 9-12 all day IPT F2F MEETING Chile
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ***************************
ALMA Memo # 565: Walsh Function Definition for ALMA
Author: Darrel Emerson
Abstract: ALMA has chosen to use a set of 128 orthogonal Walsh functions,
both for the sideband separation using 90-degree phase switching at the
first local oscillator, and for spurious rejection using 180-degree phase
switching at the first local oscillator with demodulation by means of a
digital sign change shortly after the digitizer. A set of orthogonal
Walsh functions can be defined and ordered in many different ways (PAL,
Natural or Paley ordering, WAL, CAL & SAL sequency ordering) and with
different phasing definitions (e.g. Harmuth phasing or 'positive
phasing') It is proposed here that ALMA standardize on set of
Walsh functions in WAL order with positive phasing. A numerical table
is included, and is available in machine readable form.
View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #565 at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma565/memo565.pdf
*****************************ALSO OF INTEREST*****************************
SMA CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Deadline: 1 March 2007
The Submillimeter Array (SMA), the radio interferometer on Mauna Kea
built by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Academia Sinica
Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, makes available a fraction of the
observing time to principal investigators from the astronomical community
(worldwide).
The proposal deadline is 1 March 2007 for the observing semester
1 May 2007 through 31 October 2007. More information, technical details,
and instructions and tools for proposal preparation and submission can be
found starting in February at http://sma1.sma.hawaii.edu/, the SMA Observer
Center web site.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Herschel Key Program Announcement of Opportunity
NHSC Website: http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/Herschel/nhsc.shtml
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Call for Observing Proposals for Arizona Radio Observatory Telescopes
(internal Call Only)
Deadline for Observing Proposals is Feb 16, 2007.
See http://aro.as.arizona.edu
***************************************************************************
Please send information for upcoming calendars by Friday evening of the
preceding biweekly period to Jennifer Neighbours or Al Wootten via e-mail
(jneighbo at nrao.edu or awootten at nrao.edu).
The calendar will be issued between late Friday and sometime on Monday by
e-mail to all NRAO scientific staff members and anyone else interested.
A specific mailing list, alma-info, has been created for anyone wishing
to receive it.
Past issues are available at
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html
More information about the mmaimcal
mailing list