[mmaimcal] FYI: Year-end BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
Al Wootten
awootten at nrao.edu
Mon Jan 14 17:35:20 EST 2008
Folks,
Contributions, comments, criticisms?
Thanks,
Al
BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
17 December 2007 - 31 Dec 2007
1 January 2008 - 14 Jan 2008
******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*************************
The achievements ALMA has been able to obtain in 2007 have poised the
project to assemble the first complete production system in Chile during
2008. Laying the groundwork for this, the ALMA Test Facility (ATF) in
New Mexico has brought together most of the pieces of the ALMA
interferometer to demonstrate the operation of the system. In June, a
ceremony was held welcoming the Array Operations Site (AOS) Technical
Building (TB), the nerve center for the array at an altitude of 5000m,
to the collection of NRAO facilities in June on the occasion of NRAO’s
50th anniversary. During the first half of the new year the correlators
will occupy the building; the first correlator has arrived in Chile from
Japan and has been installed in the AOS TB. From April through year’s
end, seven antennas have been delivered to Chile; the first antenna from
Mitsubishi Electric Co. (MElCo) underwent holography and other tests
during the final quarter of the year. Shortly, ALMA is expected to
begin to accept antennas from the contractors for testing, leading to
installation of the ALMA receiver package, undergoing its readiness
reviews as this is written. The mighty transporters have been
demonstrated in Germany have embarked on their journey to meet the
antennas at the Operations Support Facility (OSF). The plan for
operating the Joint ALMA Observatory was reviewed by an international
committee in February, which led to the adoption by the ALMA Board of
the ALMA Operations Plan, a blueprint for ALMA to produce its
transformational science. Best wishes for a productive 2008!
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The Atacama Compact Array Correlator has been installed in the AOS TB.
Various power and heating and cooling tests are being performed.
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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
***************************************************************************
General Happenings
Photos of activity may be found at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery/index.html
Sky: Mars shines in the East after sunset, slowly growing smaller as
Earth pulls ahead in the celestial race. A little later Saturn joins it
in the evening sky. Venus is the bright morning star, with Jupiter low
at Dawn. Past issues have noted Comet Tuttle; now radioastronomers have
imaged the solid nucleus with the Arecibo planetary radar. The
resulting image provides 300m resolution. According to J. K. Harmon and
colleagues, the nucleus "is a strongly bifurcated object, possibly a
contact binary, with two roughly spherical lobes measuring 3 and 4 km in
diameter (+/- 25 percent)," according to IAU Circular #8909. An echo
from large (>cm) sized grains in the coma was also reported. The comet
remains a naked eye object.
AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): The ACA correlator is installed
and tests continue. ite, 16570ft altitude): The ACA correlator is
installed and tests continue. In the rest of the building, the computer
floor has been installed; all technical rooms are prepared for equipment
installation. Construction continues on the Hangar to shelter the
transporter. The expected completion date of the transporter hangar is
February 2007.
OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): There are 531 people
working at the ALMA site. There was a holiday shutdown on major work.
The Gatehouse on Chilean Highway 23 has been accepted, as has been the
Warehouse element of the Technical Building complex; the remainder of
the buildings in the complex will finish very soon. Modules have been
erected for ALMA Camp extension stages three and four. One-third of
panels have been installed on VxRSI antenna no 2; completion is expected
in mid January 2008. The pedestal for the third antenna was placed in
the Site Erection Facility building on 17 Dec; it arrived at the OSF on
12 Dec.
ATF: Baseline solution at ATF is good enough to track fringes for
several hours. These now show effects due to steps in the LO line
length correction and evidence of further phase instabilities that
remain to be investigated. Work ongoing this week.
NTC (NRAO Technology Center): All 128 Tunable Filter Board (TFB) cards
for the 2nd Quadrant have been received in CV.
NAASC:
A calendar of NAASC events may be found at:
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/calendar/calendar.php
***************************************************************************
DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
Sun 16 Dec - Beethoven's Birthday
Mon 17 Dec -
4:00PM: ATF telecon
Tue 18 Dec -
10:30AM: JAO/IPT telecon
Wed 19 Dec -
10:30AM: Sci IPT telecon
Thu 20 Dec -
Fri 21 Dec -
Sat 22 Dec -
Sun 23 Dec -
Mon 24 Dec -
Tue 25 Dec - Christmas
Wed 26 Dec -
Thu 27 Dec -
Fri 28 Dec -
Sat 29 Dec -
Sun 30 Dec -
Mon 31 Dec - Gator Bowl's Eve
Tue 1 Jan - Happy New Year!
Wed 2 Jan -
Thu 3 Jan -
Fri 4 Jan -
Sat 5 Jan -
Sun 6 Jan -
Mon 7 Jan -
Tue 8 Jan - AAS Meeting, Austin
Wed 9 Jan - AAS Meeting, Austin
Thu 10 Jan - AAS Meeting, Austin
Fri 11 Jan - AAS Meeting, Austin
12:40pm (EST) C. Brogan, Searching for the Secrets of Massive Star Birth
Sat 12 Jan -
Sun 13 Jan -
Mon 14 Jan -
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS *************************
Jan 8 ASAC Telecon
Jan 10 NRAO Town Hall 12:45pm Austin Tx AAS
Jan 15 ESAC face-to-face meeting Garching
Jan 18 ANASAC telecon ---
Jan 23-24 Nutator CDR ASIAA
Feb 1-2 ASAC face-to-face Santiago
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *************************
*****************************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************
The Cosmic Agitator - Magnetic Fields in the Galaxy
60 years of studies of the interstellar magnetic field
2008 March 26-29
Lexington. The magnetic field of the galaxy was discovered in observations
made in 1948. Since that time, the galactic magnetic field has challenged
(and often annoyed) observers and theorists alike. This meeting will
celebrate sixty years of studies of the interstellar magnetic field, a
field
ALMA's transformational capabilities will revolutionize. See
http://thunder.pa.uky.edu/magnetic/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tenure Track Astronomers REQ NO: CV3631
SUMMARY: The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) invites
outstanding applicants for one or more tenure-track astronomer
positions, especially in the areas of time-domain astronomy, solar
system research, exo-planets, Epoch of Re-ionization, structure
formation, Dark Energy and Dark Matter. Candidates will be selected on
both the basis of excellence in research and on their ability to further
the mission of the Observatory.
URL below.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Assistant Scientist (CASA) REQ NO: CV3682
SUMMARY: The National Radio
Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) invites applications for an astronomer,
software engineer, or physicist with experience in astronomical data
processing to develop data reduction software for the Atacama
Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Expanded Very Large Array
(EVLA). The Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) package is
written primarily in C++ under a Python wrapper (for more information on
CASA, see http://casa.nrao.edu/).This is an NRAO Scientist position,
with 25% of time available to pursue independent research. The position
will be based in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, at the North American
ALMA Science Center (NAASC).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jobs for scientists interested in working on the commissioning of ALMA
are available at both ESO and NRAO.
We invite applications for one or more Assistant Scientist positions in
the NAASC. The primary responsibility of the successful candidates
initially is to participate in ALMA Commissioning and Science
Verification (CSV).
http://www.nrao.edu/administration/personnel_office/careers.shtml
For ESO jobs please see:
https://jobs.eso.org/ESOCP370/default.asp?PageNo=DEFAULT
For ALMA jobs please see:
http://www.alma.cl/jobops/
***************************************************************************
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.
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Past issues are available at
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