[mmaimcal] FYI: 19 May 07 BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO

Mon Jun 16 09:27:16 EDT 2008

Folks,
Comments, contributions, corrections?
Al

                BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
                        19 May 2008 - 2 June 2008

******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*************************
ALMA/NA Front End Number 1, including Bands 3 (3mm), 6 (1.3mm), 7 (.87 mm)
and 9 (.45 mm) was successfully reassembled, cooled and tested at the OSF
by a team from Charlottesville which included Christian Holmstedt, Andrea
Vaccari, Denis Urbain, Morgan McLeod, and Kamaljet Saini under the
leadership of Antonio Perfetto.  Congratulations to the Front End
team for achieving this milestone so successfully.
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Tropical Storm ALMA moved through Nicaragua.
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Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html
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General Happenings
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery/index.html
Sky:  Before dawn on June 30, the crescent moon passes through the Pleiades,
best seen from North America.  Mars and Saturn are nighttime objects,
Jupiter is in Sagittarius and Venus in Aries.

SCO (Santiago Central Office) : A Face to face meeting of the Science
Operations IPT was held in Santiago.

AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): An internal design review of the
AOS antenna station layout, interconnecting road system, power and fiber
optic layout will be held 10-12 June.  Road work, trenching, power and
fiber optic connections for Pad 93, adjacent to the Technical Building,
will be completed by August for testing of the first antenna at the AOS.
Work began on grading of the area for the central cluster, and is 60%
complete; full completion is expected in mid-June.  A permanent
communication link will be started immediately between AOS and OSF.

OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): HVAC acceptance tests will
occur this fortnight on VertexRSI antanna No 1.  Photogrammetry is in
progress on antenna No 2, shortly to be moved outside the Erection
Facility building.  Electrical work on No 3 is nearing completion; panels
are being installed on No 4 and No 5 is due in port.

AOC: CASA Patch #2 development frozen; now in the final
integration/testing phase.

ATF: Pending further developments, the ATF will remain in operation
through 1 September.  A 17 May brake failure on the AEC antenna was caused
by a failed solenoid after a power outage; by 21 May functionality was
restored.
Software functionality test scheduled soon.  The number of science objects
being observed in the evenings is growing. Focus is on carbon stars and
star forming regions (with CS lines) and quasars for practice doing a
calibrator survey.

NTC (NRAO Technology Center):  An Expert Team meets 7-9 June at the NA
Front End Integration Center (FEIC) to help establish technical readiness
of the FEICs and to verify the Front End assembly design concept. 
Subsequent meetings in June will occur in Taipei and Rutherford Appleton
Labs in the UK.  Provisional Acceptance Site for the First ALMA Front End
was held in the period ending just before this fortnight.  Band 6 (1.3mm)
SN09, the first production cartridge, has been built up to the 4K stage
and is awaiting delivery of LO waveguide.  At the FEIC/NA, Front End SN02
was re-mounted with all four cartridges installed, and cooled
satisfactorily.
The second quadrant of the bilateral correlator is completely assembled
and ready for full circuit card population; handover to the Computing IPT
for
systems verification will occur shortly.

A face-to-face meeting of ALMA Operations personnel occurred
this period in Santiago.
A calendar of NAASC events may be found at:
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/calendar/calendar.php
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DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS *************************
   May 21                ASAC Telecon
   May 23      2pm       ANASAC Telecon
   May 28-29   1st LO and WCA Manufacturing Readiness Review  
Charlottesville
   June 2-5              AAS Meeting                           St. Louis
   June 16-18 	   	 Master Laser, Laser Synthesizer CDR   Quebec City
   June 23-27            Band 9 Preproduction Review
   June 23-27            Band 9 Manufacturing Readiness Review
   July 2     1430UT 	 ASAC Telecon 	                       Telecon
   Sep 2      1430UT 	 ASAC Telecon 	                       Telecon
   Sep 9-11              ACA 7m antenna PPDR                   Osaka
   Sep 28-29 	  	 ASAC face-to-face 	               Charlottesville
   Dec 9-11 	  	 ALMA Annual External Incremental Review OSF
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *************************

*****************************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************
Registration is now open for "Transformational Science with ALMA:
The Birth and Feedback of Massive Stars, Within and Beyond the Galaxy"
A workshop to be held at the North American ALMA Science Center
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia
September 25-27 2008
Please see: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/php/meetings/massive08/
Abstract submission is now closed.
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A small workshop will be held at IRAM, Grenoble September 8 2008 on
the topic of simulations of ALMA imaging.  The goals are
1) To bring together the radio astronomy community with expertise in
   simulations of ALMA data to share experiences, ideas and code
2) To illustrate the power of ALMA in a small number of scientific
   fields through the presentation of simulations of ALMA science
   targets
3) To assess how simulations can be used to optimise the performance
   of ALMA once it is operational, by, for example, suggesting the
   optimal calibration strategies and observing modes
The workshop web-page is:
http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/~bn204/almasim08/
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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