Folks,
Trying to catch up--a use for long layovers! Comments, contributions or
cusswords?
Al
BIWEEKY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
12-26 January 2009
******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*************************
An engineering model Front End from the East Asian Front End Integration
Center (EA FEIC) achieved provisional acceptance site (PAS) on 2008 Dec
17 with support from Denis Urbain from the NA FEIC. This is the second
engineering model front end at the OSF; the first, from the NA FEIC,
has been installed and is cold on the newly accepted MELCO antenna.
That antenna was moved to antenna pad TF6 at the OSF on January 8.
The assembly integration and verification phase of ALMA enters
full throttle with this fist accepted antenna at the OSF. Optical
pointing observations on the Vertex No 1 antenna continue as well as
analysis activities in advance of the Acceptance Review to occur
next 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 NRAO eNews:
http://www.nrao.edu/news/newsletters/
Sky: Comet Lulin has reached closest approach to the Sun and will grace
morning skies as it approaches Earth on its way back to the chilly outer
solar system. Venus grows brilliant as the evening star--through modest
telescopes one can make out its thinning crescent in the coming months.
SCO (Santiago Central Office): An AIV/CSV/CIPT/Ops meeting will occur
in Santiago. ALMA Science Advisory Committee members will meet ALMA
staff at Alsacia on 30 January.
AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): To date, 39 foundations have
received structural concrete. Near the center of the array, work
continues on the 22 foundations for the ACA, many of which are packed
very closely. Nearby, the grading for the Central Cluster is approaching
completion. The correlator continues to run in the Technical Building.
Implementation of the 1-msec continuum integration mode was successfully
tested; support of 2-, 4-, and 8-msec integrations is in development.
According to a study of Chajnantor weather conditions at
APEX and on Cerro Chajnantor for 2008 from S. Radford, 2008 was an
excellent year. Levels of precipitable water vapor as low os 0.2mm
were observed about 10% of the time at APEX.
OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): The ninth Vertex antenna
is expected to arrive the week of 19 January. Concrete has been poured
for a 7th foundation in the Vertex Site Erection Facility (SEF) compound.
John Shutt, an engineer from the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hilo, has been
hired to support antenna work at the OSF beginning early Feb. The
contractor for the OSF Technical Facilities, VVMO, operated from a
camp which they built. The camp was handed over by VVMO to ESO on
22-Dec-2008 soon after its purchase. First shipments of antenna
components from AEM for the European antenna are arriving. Holography
system #2 was shipped to the OSF on 26 Nov and PAS was completed.
The ALMA Science Advisory Committee will meet at the OSF 28-29 Jan.
An interim control room has been set up in the Eastern TF lab
corridor.
Elsewhere: A special session on ALMA Status and Science was held at
the North American Radioscience meeting in Boulder. Talks by Emerson,
diFrancesco, Freund, Kern, Nikolic, Langley, Shepherd, Webber, Welch
and Wootten were presented; they are available at:
https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/ALMA/UsRm
A Radionet algorithms workshop was held in Oxford. Good Band 10
(.35mm) RF performance has been successfully demonstrated at Mitaka
using a NbTiN-based SIS mixer with an improved circuit design.
Relatively low-current-density Nb/AlOx/Nb junctions (8 kA/cm2)
were employed. At LO frequencies from 800 GHz to 940 GHz,
corrected receiver noise temperatures were below 240 K at an operating
physical temperature of 4 K, meeting a specification.
Production receiver cartridges have begun rolling off the line. The
first Band 9 (.45mm) production unit passed provisional acceptance
in house.
NAASC: ALMA was featured in a booth at the AAS meeting in Long Beach.
At the NSF Town Hall, Blain summarized the ALMA Development program
plans. At the NRAO Town Hall, a capsule review of ALMA status was
given. A new brochure on ALMA was distributed. A Notice of Intent
was filed with the Astronomy and Astrophysics 2010 Decadal Survey
Committee covering ALMA Development projects. An ANASAC telecon was
held, with a focus on ALMA proposal review.
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 *************************
Jan 15 ALMA Management IPT Meeting
Jan 28-29 ASAC f2f OSF.
Feb 4-5 Band 7 Manufacturing Readiness Review, IRAM
Feb 9 Water Vapor Radiometer Test Readiness Review
Feb 12 Band 3 Manufacturing Readiness Review, HIA
Feb 19 EU FEIC PAI for engineering model Front End.
Mar 18 Band 4 (2mm) PAI NAOJ
Mar 24-27 ALMA and ELTs: A Deeper, Finer View of the Universe, ESO
Jun 8-12 mm and submm Astronomy at High Angular Resolution, ASIAA
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *************************
*****************************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************
CARMA Proposals Due
Observing time with CARMA is allocated in response to proposals judged
on scientific merit. The current Call for Proposals for general and
target of opportunity (TOO) time is for observations covering the
period July 1, 2009 - November 30, 2009. Proposals are due on
March 18.
Proposals requesting Director's discretionary time may be submitted
at any time. See: http://www.mmarray.org/
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SMA Proposals Due
Following the direction of the SMA steering committee, the CfA SMA
Time Allocation Committee (TAC) solicits proposals for observations
in the 230, 345, 400, and 690 GHz bands for the period 2009 May 16 -
2009 Nov 15. The deadline for submitting proposals is 2009 March 5
(16:00 EST = 11:00 HST). In addition, large (legacy) proposals must
be preceded by a brief "Notice of Intent" by 2009 February 26,
16:00 EST. See http://sma1.sma.hawaii.edu/call.html
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Several ALMA positions are available at the JAO (Santigo).
Details for all positions may be viewed at:
http://www.alma.cl
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Proposal deadlines for CARMA, SMA, NRAO.
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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