[mmaimcal] FYI: 6 - 22 Oct 2008 BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
Al Wootten
awootten at nrao.edu
Thu Nov 6 17:40:06 EST 2008
Folks,
Comments, corrections, contributions or ?
Thanks!
Clear skies,
Al
BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
6 October - 20 October 2008
******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*************************
The First ALMA Front End in Chile, engineering model SN01 was to be
installed on Melco 12m ACA antenna No 2 Oct 13-14; Denis Urbain is
assisting and observing the installation. Previously, ALMA Calibration
Device #1, a prototype, had been installed in a 12 m ACA antenna.
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Abstracts have been received for the US annual meeting of URSI
2009 January 5-8 Boulder, CO See details and links at:
Commisiion J: http://www.astro.caltech.edu/USNC-URSI-J/
There will be sessions on THz Astronomy, ALMA, Wideband Instrumentation,
Long Baseline Interferometry and New Telescopes, Techniques and
Observations.
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Erratum:
The first quadrant of the bilateral correlator can serve 16 antenna
stations. The ACA correlator, also installed in the AOS TB, can serve
16 antennas also.
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Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html
***************************************************************************
General Happenings
Photos of activity may be found at NRAO eNews:
http://www.nrao.edu/news/newsletters/
and at the *New* ALMA site htto://www.almaobservatory.org
Sky: Jupiter is in the South, Venus low in the West. Asteroid 2008
TC3 hit Sudan last October 7 at around 5 :23 am local time. The annual
Taurid meteor shower peaks Nov. 5th through 12th. Earth is due to pass
through a swarm of gritty debris from parent comet 2P/Encke. New
images were released of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, taken on
Halloween by Cassini with a resolution of 40 feet.
SCO (Santiago Central Office): Schedule review. Antonio Hales,
Stuartt Corder and Tsuyoshi Sawada have arrived in Chile to join the
Commissioning Team.
AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Twenty six foundations have
received concrete now. Soon work will begin on the 29 foundations within
the Atacama Compact Array area. AOS Technical Building is
finished and waiting for ALMA acceptance. The fiber optic link to the
OSF will be presented to the ESO Finance Council in early
November. Very low levels of precipitable water were
measured, with most nights below a half millimeter of precipitable
weather.
OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): Safety Review 8-10 Oct.
The ALMA Calibration Device #1, a prototype, has been installed
on Melco 12 m ACA antenna No 2. The first ALMA Front End was
later mounted on this antenna. The holography measurement of
Melco ACA 12-m Antenna No 1 is going on, and data are being
taken under a variety of weather conditions. The Melco ACA 12-m
Antenna No 3 is now ready for Optical Pointing Telescope (OPT)
measurements.
AOC: Construction of storage building is ongoing. A CASA tutorial
was held at the AOC
ATF: Tests of total power observing modes gave way to a return to
interferometry on 5 October. R. Laing arrived 7 October for
science tests.
NTC (NRAO Technology Center): Mike Shannon, the new deputy project manager
for Band 6 (1.3mm), started work Oct 1. Significant progress toward
system validation for the NA Front End Integration Center (FEIC) beam
scanner. Assembly of the third quadrant of the bilateral correlator
continued.
Elsewhere: East Asia: The Test Readiness Review for the Band 4 (2mm)
and Band 8 (0.6mm) cold cartridge assemblies is tentatively scheduled
for Nov 7. The Provisional Acceptace In-house (PAI) review
meeting for the East Asian (EA) FE #1 assembly is scheduled for Oct 20.
Europe: The ACA Front End (FE) Optics Critical Design Review (CDR) is now
scheduled on 13 and 14 Nov 2008, directly after the Band 7 (0.9mm) Cartridge
Pre-Production Review (PPR), and will be held at IRAM in Grenoble,
France. A PAI meeting for a Band 6 (1.3mm) Cartridge was held on 10 Oct
2008. With the delivery of this Band 6 Cartridge, incl. Warm Cartridge
Assembly (WCA) and bias module, the European Front End Integration
Center (FEIC) will shortly have one complete set of base line receivers.
NAASC:
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 *************************
Oct 8-10 Safety Review Chile
Nov 12-14 ALMA Board Chile
Nov 17-19 Software Review Chile
Dec 9-11 ALMA Annual External Incremental Review OSF
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *************************
ALMA Memo 580 Frequency profile difference between ACA Correlator
and 64-Antenna Correlator
Authors: Kamazaki, T., Okumura, S. K., Chikada, Y.
Abstract:
ACA Correlator and 64-Antenna Correlator adopt FX and XF architecture,
respectively. This difference introduces different frequency responses
between them. However, for combined imaging of the ACA and the 12m-Array
data, their frequency profile compatibility is required, and one
possible method is the convolution of weighting function in the frequency
domain. We have studied this method and found that "a XF frequency response
convolved with Hanning window function" is well synthesized by linear
combination of "twelve FX frequency responses", when one frequency channel
width of the 64-Antenna Correlator is two times as large as that of the
ACA Correlator. Then, we have calculated frequency profiles by convolving
synthesized and original frequency responses with several object profiles.
The maximum profile difference between them is estimated to be small by
0.6 % or less except for the case of δ function as an object profile.
View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #580 at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma580/memo580.pdf
*****************************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************
Several ALMA positions are available at NRAO. Example:
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory invites applications for an
ALMA Postdoctoral Fellow position with the Commissioning team in Chile.
When completed in 2012, ALMA will be the most powerful (sub)millimeter
interferometer ever constructed, and will transform our understanding of
topics ranging from the formation of nearby protoplanetary disks to the
earliest epochs of galaxy formation. This position is assigned to the ALMA
project with operational duties in Chile. The position is funded by a grant
from the National Science Foundation through the ALMA Construction Project
and as an international staff position will exist during the construction
period through 2011. There may be possibilities to transfer to the
observatory science operations team during or after construction.
Details for all positions may be viewed at:
http://members.aas.org/JobReg/JobDetailPage.cfm?JobID=25062
or
http://www.nrao.edu/administration/personnel_office/careers.shtml#CV4917_ALMA_POSTDOC
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The US National Radioscience Meeting (USNC/URSI) meets in Boulder
on 5-8 Jan 2009. Among the Commission J topics is a session on
ALMA Technology, Science and Status.
See: http://www.astro.caltech.edu/USNC-URSI-J/ for abstracts of this
and other sessions.
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