[mmaimcal] FYI: 28 July 2008 BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
Al Wootten
awootten at nrao.edu
Wed Sep 3 18:18:42 EDT 2008
Folks,
Comments, contributions or corrections? Gotta catch up!
Thanks,
Al
BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
28 July 2008 - 11 August 2008
******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*************************
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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
Photos of activity may be found at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery/index.html
Sky: A Total Eclipse of the Sun occurs 1 August in the northern regions
of Earth. A lunar eclipse follows two weeks later, visible from eastern
Europe, eastern Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Get ready
for the Perseid meteors, best seen in the wee hours of the morning of 12
August. During mid-minth all five of the naked-eye planets will be
visible in northern skies, with Venus emergence into the evening sky.
SCO (Santiago Central Office): A meeting of the Management IPT occurred
at the end of the month. Computing IPT will join the Management Team.
A Schedule Control Board will be set up to control the schedule. A
Safety Review will be held 8-10 Oct. There will be a Computing Review
17-19 November. Preparations are under way for the Annual ALMA External
Review, to be held 9-11 December. The ALMA EPO Group meets in
Charlottesville 11-12 August. Rainer Mauersberger arrived in Chile to
take up his post as Commissioning Scientist, joining Robert Lucas.
AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): APEX has reported water vapor
at Chajnantor generally below 1mm over the fortnight. Twelve antenna
pads have received structural concrete. However, there are currently no
plans to put antennas on those pads soon.
OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): Preparations are being
made to occupy the Technical Facility Buildings. The adjacent
holography tower is finished and outfitting continues. The pedestal for
Vertex antenna No 6 has arrived. Work should begin soon on the lay-down
area for the European antenna. D. Emerson is finishing up tests of the
first Vertex antenna surface.
TUC: Optical Pointing Telescope (OPT) CDR is scheduled for August 13-14.
ATF: Jack Meadows has been awarded the prestigious NRAO Distinguished
Performance Award for his many
significant contributions to the NRAO, not least for his efforts in
recent years to keep the ATF hardware functioning. Congratulations,
Jack! Software version 5.1.1 being debugged, includes total power
capabilities needed at the OSF. Science IPT members used the VA antenna
to observe a full 2000$,1r}(Bx2000$,1r}(B raster scan of the moon. Imaging and the
first rough calibration has been performed by developers.
NTC (NRAO Technology Center): The 64-antenna correlator first quadrant
has been crated for shipping and the first of four batches of crates has
departed. Detailed planning for installation and checkout of the first
quadrant is essentially complete.
Backend Consultant, Jean-Francois Cliche$,1%A(B, recently spent 3 weeks in
CVille becoming familiar with Photonic LO. He will now be
stationed for one year in San Pedro working for Backend on many aspects
of the Photonic LO deliverables.
NAASC: About 140 participants have registered for the September
Workshop. A face-to-face meeting of the EPO group is scheduled for
11-12 Aug at the 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 *************************
Aug 11-12 EPO face-to-face Ch'ville
Sep 3 1430UT ASAC Telecon Telecon
Sep 8-10 Simulation Workshop Grenoble
Sep 9-11 ACA 7m antenna PPDR Itami
Sep 12 ANASAC f2f meeting Charlottesville
Sep 25 ALMA Board Telecon Telecon
Sep 25-27 NAASC Workshop Charlottesville
Sep 28-29 ASAC face-to-face Charlottesville
Nov 17-19 Software Review Santiago
Dec 9-11 ALMA Annual External Incremental Review OSF
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *************************
ELVA Memo #126: Accuracy Requirements for EVLA Meteorological Measurements
Authors: Bryan Butler and Rick Perley, NRAO
Abstract:
Analysis of the sensitivity of refraction and phase correction upon
meteorological measurements suggests an accuracy in temperature of 0.2
deg C, in dew point of 1.0 deg C, and of relative humidity of 0.8%.
View a pdf and ps version of EVLA Memo #126 at:
http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/evla/memolist.shtml
*****************************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************
CARMA Call for Proposals, Semester 2009A
Deadline: 17 September 2008
Proposals for observations using CARMA during the period 1 January to
30 June 2009 are due on 17 September 2008. Proposals should be submitted
using the electronic form at http://carma.astro.uiuc.edu/proposals/
before 17:00 CDT (22:00 UT) 17 September, 2008. Detailed information,
including sensitivities and proposal submission instructions, are
available at http://www.mmarray.org . Questions may also be addressed to
Dr. Nikolaus Volgenau (volgenau @ mmarray.org).
-------------
coming for 2009A:
An interactive correlator configuration tool has been developed to
aid PIs with proposal preparation and observation set-up. The tool will
be available soon on the CARMA website.
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Call for Proposals for the Submillimeter Array (SMA).
The SMA is currently accepting proposals from principle investigators
from within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as well as
from the
worldwide astronomical community. The proposal deadline is 2008
September 11 for the observing semester 2008 November 16 through
2009 May 15.
SMA comprises of eight 6-m antennas operating at 230 GHz, 345 GHz,
420 GHz and 690 GHz bands. More information, technical details,
instructions and tools for proposal preparation and submission
can be found at http://sma1.sma.hawaii.edu/, the SMA Observer Center
web site.
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The Submillimetre APEX Bolometer Camera (SABOCA), a 39-channel bolometer
array operating at 350 micron, will be commissioned on the APEX 12m
telescope on Chajnantor in September 2008. ESO now invites short
proposals for science verification from the ESO community.
All observations will be performed in service mode by the local APEX
staff. All proposals should be sent to cdebreuc[AT]eso.org by noon CEST
on Monday 15 September 2008. The proposals will be coordinated between
the APEX partners. If you submit proposals to multiple partners, please
clearly indicate in the proposal how much time you request from each
partner.
The full call for proposals and further information can be found at
http://www.eso.org/sci/activities/apexsv/sabocasv/
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SHARCII on the CSO offers a 384 pixel array operating at 350 micron;
access is open to all observers.
Proposals for observing time on the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory
on Mauna Kea for the semester to begin 1st Feb 2009 should be sent
by 31st Oct 2008 to T. G. Phillips, Caltech 320-47, Pasadena, CA 91125.
For further information please refer to the CSO web site at
http://www.submm.caltech.edu/cso.
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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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