[mmaimcal] FYI: 19 May - 2 Jun BIWEEKY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
Al Wootten
awootten at nrao.edu
Mon Jun 15 23:51:13 EDT 2009
Folks,
Comments, corrections, contributions please? A little late for those
proposals--sorry!
Clear skies,
Al
BIWEEKY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
19 May - 2 June 2009
******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*************************
The Herschel telesope (with its longtime companion Planck) launched
successfully from Kourou, Guiana on 14 May. Initial tests showed that
the HIFI instrument, whose frequency coverage is common with some ALMA
bands, is working properly. Congratulations to the ESA and NASA teams
on this event.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
A new standard ALMA Description has been adopted:
“The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an
international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe,
North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.
ALMA is funded in Europe
by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern
Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science
Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council
of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC)
and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS)
of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan.
ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO,
on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
(NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and
on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of
Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified
leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and
operation of ALMA.”
The Board also approved Version III of the Project Plan.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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/
Sky: Venus and Mars rise before dawn; Saturn rules the night from Leo's
belly.
SCO (Santiago Central Office): A Management IPT face-to-face meeting was
held. The construction phase of the Santiago Central Office building, on
the grounds of the ESO complex at Vitacura, has begun.
AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): 132 foundations have had lean
concrete poured. To date, 66 foundations have been
provisionally accepted. 22 foundations for Atacama Compact Array (ACA)
antennas have been provisionally accepted. Access to the first antenna
pad to receive an antenna at A106 near the Technical Building is complete.
Trenching for utilities is complete with power and fiber installation
imminent. Physical installation of the second correlator quadrant is
expected to be August 17-25
OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): The recently accepted third
ALMA
antenna has had its surface adjusted to well below 12 microns by a team led
by D. Emerson. Radio pointing models, focus curves and beam maps have been
obtained for PM03 and DV01.Three Vertex antennas stand on foundations
outside
the Site Erection Facility awaiting acceptance tests; No 3 is undergoing
formal pointing tests. The third WVR, second at the OSF, passed provisional
acceptance on-site (PAS) on 29 May. Amplitude Calibration Devices (ACD) 5
and 6 went through provisional acceptance in-house (PAI); ACD5 was shipped
to the OSF. Modifications of the OSF technical facility electrical design
are ongoing.
AOC: A new CASA Manager has been hired, Nick Elias, who will arrive in
about three months. Elias has been managing a Very Large Telescope
Interferometer (VLTI) pipeline. The CASA 2.4 release will be used at
an ALMA Workshop in Hamilton Ontario. Antenna Article (AA) 5, including
analog and digital racks, left the crating vendor in Albuquerque.
Antenna Articles nos 6, 7 and 8 will be shipped to the OSF in mid-June.
Keller Ford and Estella Candelaria join Saxon Sturgis as the newest members
of the Back End IPT- The Next Generation!
NTC: The panel report for the operational readiness review for the NA-FEIC
was released (ALMA-40.00.00.00-186-A10-REP). Installation of signal cables
in Quadrant 3 of the 64 antenna correlator began.
TUS: ALMA participated in an NSF large facilities meeting and a NEON
meeting and was featured at a U. Az. radio astronomy lunch.
NAASC: Registration continues for the Sept 21-24 Workshop, fourth
in a series on transformational science with ALMA. The Operations
Software Review in Santiago occurs this biweek.
Elsewhere: Assembly of the Band 10 (.35mm) prototype cartridge has
begun in Mitaka, near Tokyo. Cryostat #9 arrived at the EA FEIC.
Cryostat #10 is undergoing PAI and will be shipped to the EU FEIC
afterwards. Cartridges: Testing of B4 (3mm) cartridge SN14 complete;
B6 (1.3mm) SN15 beting tested; B7 (.85mm) Cartridge 10 being shipped to
EU FEIC; B9: cartridge #15 shipped to EA FEIC. Water Vapour Radiometer
WVR SN104 passed PAI on 6 May 2009 and is currently being shipped to
the OSF.
A calendar of NAASC events may be found at:
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/alma_calendar.shtml
***************************************************************************
DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS *************************
May 18-19 EU-Front End Integration Center meeting, RAL
May 26-29 Advancing Chemical Understanding thru Astronomical
Observations
Jun 1-2 Ops software requirements review, Santiago
Jun 8-12 mm and submm Astronomy at High Angular Resolution, ASIAA
Jun 11-12 Front End Service Vehicle PDR, Taichung, Taiwan
Jun 17 Correlator Quadrant 2 Provisional Acceptance In-house
(PAI)
Jun 22-25 Band 4 and 8 FE CDR & PAI Tokyo
Sep 21-25 Assembly, Gas Content and Star Formation History of
Galaxies
Nov 11-12 ALMA Board face-to-face meeting, Santiago
Nov 16- Annual ALMA External Review, Santiago
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *************************
*****************************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************
CALL FOR OBSERVING PROPOSALS FOR NRAO TELESCOPES
Deadline: 1 June 2009, 5:00 P.M., EST (21:00 UTC)
Proposal preparation and submission are via the Proposal Submission
Tool at http://my.nrao.edu. Several modifications to the PST have
been made and will be in place starting 12:00 EDT (noon) Friday, 15
May 2009.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
CALL FOR OBSERVING PROPOSALS FOR THE CALTECH SUBMILLIMETER OBSERVATORY
The Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) encourages
observing participation by astronomers from both U.S. and non-U.S.
institutions. The observatory consists of a 10.4 m diameter telescope
on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Receivers are available from 200 to 400 GHz with
noise temperatures of about 100 K (DSB) and, from 400 to 730 GHz at
about 200 K (DSB). A receiver is available from 780 – 920 GHz with a
noise temperature of about 250 K. AOS back-ends of about 1000 channels
are available with 1 GHz and 50 MHz bandwidths. A new FFTS
spectrometer with 8192 channels and a selectable bandwidth of 1
GHz or 500 MHz is also available.
For further information please refer to the CSO web site at
http://www.submm.caltech.edu/cso.
***************************************************************************
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
More information about the mmaimcal
mailing list