[mmaimcal] FYI: 1 Jan 2007 BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO

Thu Jan 4 18:20:41 EST 2007

Folks

Comments, contributions or criticisms please!

Clear skies,
Al

                    BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
                        1 January 2007 - 15 January 2007

******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT***************************
NRAO Town Meeting at the 2007 Winter AAS Meeting in Seattle Washington.
The NRAO Town Meeting at the Seattle AAS will take place next 
Monday, 8 January, 12:45 - 01:45 p.m. in location 6A.
  The NRAO Town Meeting agenda is:
  Introduction & ALMA      K.Y. Lo
  VLA/EVLA & VLBA          J. Ulvestad
  GBT                      F.J. Lockman
See you there!  A copy of the ALMA pamphlet to be distributed may be
obtained at: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/presentations/
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ALMA's Year in 2007  Happy New Year to all!  
This will be a busy year for the ALMA Project.  In this observer's 
view, the following items will headline ALMA's 2007 progress:
ALMA Board, funding agency review of ALMA Operations Plan
First astronomical interferometry ALMA Test Facility (ATF), Socorro
Array Operation Site Technical Building (AOS TB) Completion
First antennas at Operations Support Facility (OSF)
First ALMA receiver packages delivered to ATF and to OSF
First transporter at Operations Support Facility
ALMA bilateral correlator installation at the AOS TB
----------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a regular rotation of the Chair of the ALMA Board 
and the Board Secretary with a two year cycle. This rotation has taken 
effect on 1 Jan 2007.  On that date, Prof. Anneila Sargent, outgoing 
Chair, and Pat Donahoe, outgoing Secretary, hand over their duties to 
the incoming Chair, Prof. Richard Wade, and the new Secretary Prof. T. 
L. Wilson.  All of us in the Project express our appreciation to the
outgoing Chair and Secretary for the job they have accomplished in the
past years.  We welcome the new Chair and Secretary.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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
***************************************************************************
General Happenings
Sky:   C/2006 P1 (McNaught) was 4.5 mag on Dec. 26 (Piotr Guzik), then it 
brightened rapidly up to 1.5 mag on Jan. 3 (Haakon Dahle). It will pass 
only 0.17 A.U. from the sun in mid January, and reach -2 mag. Beware that 
the comet will be very close to the Sun at this time and it may be 
dangerous to attempt observations with the naked eye.  However, because the 
comet is very bright, it is visible in the extremely low sky in the twilight 
if the sky conditions are excellent.  After January 6th it becomes mainly 
an evening target. It will pass only 40 arcmin from 
Mercury on Jan. 14 at 16 o'clock (UT). Because the comet is moving 
southwards, it will be unobservable in the Northern Hemisphere soon. 
In the Southern Hemisphere, it appears at around 2 mag in late January, 
then it keeps observable while fading gradually while ALMA is built.

Santiago: Juan Carlos Inostroza

AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Work continues toward completion
of the building during the first half of the year.

OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): Work continues toward completion
of the building.

TUC: Half the NRAO Tucson personnel have been supporting work at the ATF.

NTC (NRAO Technology Center, Charlottesville): 

NAASC: A number of ALMA-related science discussions will occur during the 
latter half of the month.
18 Jan NRAO 4pm Simon Radford, Caltech 
                        "The Cornell Caltech Atacama Telescope"
19 Jan NRAO 4pm Astrochemistry meeting
22 Jan U.Va.4pm Dr. Alan P. Boss, CIW, 
                   "Giant Planet Formation: Theory vs. Observations"
25 Jan NRAO 4pm Doug Johnstone, NRC/HIA,
     "Understanding How Star Formation Proceeds in the Perseus and
                        Ophiuchus Molecular Clouds"

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/

ATF: Holography on the VertexRSI prototype antenna is finished.  VertexRSI
personnel will be at the antenna during the second week of January.
***************************************************************************
DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
 Mon  1 Jan - International Holiday.  Happy New Year!
 Tue  2 Jan -
 Wed  3 Jan -  Earth is at the perihelion of its orbit
8:57am - Full Moon
1:00pm - NAASC Telecon
4:00pm - NA Science IPT telecon
 Thu  4 Jan
 Fri  5 Jan
 Sat  6 Jan - 
 Sun  7 Jan - AAS Meeting, Seattle
 Mon  8 Jan - AAS Meeting, Seattle
 Tue  9 Jan - AAS Meeting, Seattle
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
 Wed  10 Jan - AAS Meeting, Seattle
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: ASAC Telecon
 Thu  11 Jan
 Fri  12 Jan
 Sat  13 Jan
 Sun  14 Jan
 Mon  15 Jan Martin Luther King Day USA
             R. E. Lee-Stonewall Jackson-M. L. King Day (Virginia)
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ****************************
 Jan 10                          ASAC Telecon
 Jan 16-17 '07   all day         Transporter FDR
 Jan 18 '07                      ALMA Board telecon
 Jan 24-25       all day         PSI Review             Socorro
 Jan 26          1900UT          ANASAC Telecon
 Jan 29-30 '07   all day         B9 Cartridge CDR
 Jan 30-1 Feb    all day         AEM antenna PPDR       Mestre
 Feb 6-7                         B9 cartridge CDR       Groningen
 Feb 15                   	 ALMA Board Telecon 	Telecon
 Mar 9-12        all day         IPT F2F MEETING        Chile
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ***************************
ALMA Memo # 566: Reflectivity, scattering and emissivity measurements on 
samples of prospective ALMA reflector panels
Authors: Jacob W.M. Baars, Bernard Buzzoni, Hans-Peter Gemünd and A. 
Polsak  

Abstract: This memo was written in 2001 but owing to the sensitive nature
of the prototype antenna construction its public appearance has been
delayed until now.

View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #566 which will be at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma566/memo566.pdf
*****************************ALSO OF INTEREST*****************************
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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