[mmaimcal] FYI: 26 Feb 2007 BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO

[Alwyn Wootten]

Comments, criticisms, contributions?

                    BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
                        26 Feb 2007 - 12 Mar 2007

******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT***************************
Two ALMA operations reviews have been successfully completed.
AUI Director Ethan Schreier and NRAO Director Fred Lo commented:
"One was an international review of the ALMA Operations Plan;
the other was an NSF review of our proposal for conducting North
American ALMA Operations and for the NAASC.  The initial debriefings by
the review committees were extremely positive.  While we must await
receipt of the written reports before providing a definitive summary,
you should know that the panels were extremely impressed by the
planning, the materials, the presentations, and the performance of the
NRAO staff.

"They were especially impressed with both the level of detail that has
gone into the planning--"years ahead" of other projects they knew at
comparable points in their lifecycles--and the teamwork displayed.  They
could not believe that the NRAO staff members involved with ALMA
operations had been working together for barely a year.  The NSF review
also conveyed their impression that NRAO appeared clearly ahead of the
other partners in operations planning.  They and NSF also heard a clear
and strong message that ALMA is NRAO's top priority, and that the One
Observatory approach provides a suite of forefront facilities from meter
to submillimeter wavelengths to the astronomical community.

"There are obviously some concerns, including the planned steep ramp-up
in hiring, and the adequacy of the resources both for user support and
for future maintenance and development, but both of these just argue for
more resources.  Overall, the panel appeared overwhelmingly supportive
of our work.

"We thank everyone who worked so hard to make this review a success, and
all who are continuing to make NRAO the world's forefront radio
astronomy observatory.

"The entire Observatory should be proud.

"Thanks!"

Ethan Schreier, AUI President
Fred Lo, NRAO Director
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The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international
telescope project, reached a major milestone on March 2, when two ALMA
prototype antennas, one contracted by ESO and one by AUI, were first
linked together as an integrated system to observe an astronomical object.

The milestone achievement, technically termed "First Fringes," came at the
ALMA Test Facility (ATF) on the grounds of the Very Large Array radio
telescope in New Mexico. The successful Saturn observation began at 7:13
p.m., U.S. Mountain Time Friday 2007 March 2 (0213 UTC Saturday). The
planet's radio emissions at a frequency of 104 GigaHertz (GHz) were
tracked by the ALMA system for more than an hour.

"Our congratulations go to the dedicated team of scientists, engineers
and technicians who produced this groundbreaking achievement for ALMA.
Much hard work and many long hours went into this effort, and we
appreciate it all. This team should be very proud today," said NRAO
Director Fred K.Y. Lo. "With this milestone behind us, we now can
proceed with increased confidence toward completing ALMA," he added.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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
Photos of activity may be found at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery/index.html
Sky:   A total lunar eclipse occurred Saturday 3 March, visible from all
ALMA partners except those in East Asia.  Jupiter reaches quadrature in
the early morning sky this fortnight.

Santiago: Planning continues for a meeting of the JAO and IPT leads,
to occur in Chile 9-12 March.

AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Weather has not been good at the
AOS the past week, with several millimeters of precipitable water reported
by APEX.

OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude):  The roof is expected to go
onto the OSF structure within the week.  There are 396 people working at
the OSF site.

ATF: See top news above; first fringes have been demonstrated on Saturn
thanks to the heroic efforts of the PSI team.

TUC: Mark Holdaway has left NRAO to pursue his business interests.  I want
to thank him for all the wisdom and advice he has so generously provided
over the years.  Although he may be retiring, he'll always be the Wizard
of ALMA to those of us in the Science IPT.  We wish him every success with
his business and hope, of course, that it is so successful he might still
find time to provide us with advice on occasion.

NTC (NRAO Technology Center, Charlottesville):  The only special card
needed for the upgraded 2-antenna prototype correlator is ready for
fabrication.

NAASC: A calendar of NAASC events may be found at:
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/calendar/calendar.php
A number of ALMA-related science discussions will occur during the
next fortnight:
2 Mar - FUNA lunch Jeff Wagg, NRAO, Socorro "Using the GBT to search for a
high-redshift population of submm luminous galaxies"
Preregistration 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  26 Feb -
 Tue  27 Feb -
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
 Wed  28 Feb -
 Thu  1 Mar -
 Fri  2 Mar -
12:00pm:  Jeff Wagg Friday lunch
 Sat  3 Mar - Total Eclipse of the Moon, beginning 5:44pm EST.
 Sun  4 Mar -
 Mon  5 Mar - ESO Workshop 'Observing Other Planetary Systems', Vitacura
 Tue  6 Mar - ESO Workshop 'Observing Other Planetary Systems', Vitacura
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
 Wed  7 Mar - ESO Workshop 'Observing Other Planetary Systems', Vitacura
9:30 am: ASAC Telecon
1:00 pm: NAASC telecon
 Thu  8 Mar - ESO Workshop 'Observing Other Planetary Systems', Vitacura
 Fri  9 Mar - JAO/IPT Meeting, Santiago
 Sat  10 Mar - JAO/IPT Meeting, Santiago, moving to San Pedro
Topping-out Ceremony, OSF Technical Building.
 Sun  11 Mar - Daylight Savings Time (DST) will begin this
Sunday, March 11 at 2am in the U. S.
JAO/IPT Meeting, San Pedro, moving to Santiago
 Mon  12 Mar - JAO/IPT Meeting, Santiago
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ****************************
 Feb 27-8        all day         ALMA Ops Plan Review   NSF
 Mar 1           all day         ALMA/NAASC Plan Review NSF
 Mar 7           1430UT          ASAC Telecon
 Mar 9-12        all day         IPT F2F MEETING        Chile
 Mar 25-27                       ALMA Board Meeting     Tokyo
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ***************************
*****************************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