BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO May 10 - May 24, 2004 ******************************** THIS BIWEEK *********************************** Welcome to ALMA! Tony Beasley has accepted a position as ALMA Project Manager in the JAO. It is anticipated that he will begin serving in this position in September in Chile. Prior to this, he will be participating in various ALMA meetings, among the first of which will be the ALMA Science Workshop to be held tomorrow and Saturday at the University of Maryland. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurence Platt has joined the Correlator Group at the NRAO Technology Center. A Technical Specialist, he will work with Ray Escoffier on the ALMA Correlator. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Information on the ALMA Workshop at University of Maryland 14-15 May 2004 may be found at www.nrao.edu/almaworkshop/ ******************************************************************************* General Happenings Chile Visitors to the OSF report that the ALMA Camp has several temporary offices and sleeping facilities now, along with a splendid outdoor grill area. Further work continues. ATF Radiometric testing is scheduled for the AEC antenna. NAASC Preparations for ASAC meeting and the ALMA/NA Science Workshop (see sbove) have dominated activities. The System Design Review report has been completed and sent to the JAO. NTC We received ~12000 custom correlator chips. Of the first units received, 24 chips were tested in sockets and all worked to clock rates of >160 MHz. AOC Mario Torres and Greg Chavez have left ALMA and NRAO; we are recruiting replacements. The 2nd Sampler Clock has arrived at Socorro. TUC Central reference generator, central reference distributor, and one LO Reference Receiver sent to prototype SI in Tucson. Cavendish Lab ASAC Meeting was held 10-11 May 2004. Agenda at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/asac/asaccambridgeagendav0.75.html DAILY CALENDAR Mon 10 All day event: ASAC Meeting, Cambridge, UK 10:30 AM-12:00 PM: JAO/IPT Teleconference Tue 11 All day event: ASAC Meeting 3:00 PM-4:00 PM: Front End Group Meeting Wed 12 Thu 13 8:30 AM-10:00 AM: JAO Teleconference Fri 14 All day event: NA ALMA Science Meeting Sat 15 All day event: NA ALMA Science Meeting Mon 17 1:00 PM-2:30 PM: NA DH Teleconference Tue 18 10:30 AM-11:00 AM: Science IPT Telecon 3:00 PM-4:00 PM: Front End Group Meeting 4:00 PM-5:00 PM: NAScienceIPT teleconference (open to all interested parties) (434)296-7082 Agenda: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ Go to meeting date (last of five years of agendas) Video conference today--Viewing of new ALMA movie (14 mins). Wed 19 Thu 20 All day event: ESO Holiday 8:30 AM-10:00 AM: JAO Teleconference Fri 21 ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ****************************** #ALMA Calendar * 10-11 May -- ASAC Face-to-face meeting, Cambridge, England * 14-15 May -- ALMA/NA Workshop, U. of Maryland * 15 May -- ANASAC Face-to-face meeting, U. of Maryland * 25-26 May -- ALMA Backend Review, Arcachon, France * 4 June -- ALMA Band 7 (275-373 GHz) PDR, Netherlands * 22-23 June -- ALMA Board Meeting, Garching * 8-10 July -- Software IPT CDR II, Denver, Colorado. * 24 September -- ALMA/EU Meeting, Garching * 11-12 Oct -- AMAC Meeting, Florence, Italy ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ******************************* ALMA MEMO #487 Lightning Near Cerro Chascon Seiichi Sakamoto (NAOJ) and Simon J. E. Radford (NRAO) 2004-04-23 Keywords: site testing, lightning, safety We present a preliminary analysis of the spatial and seasonal lightning distribution near the Cerro Chascon science preserve, probed with a space-borne imaging sensor and ground-based storm detectors. The lightning flash rate in this area is among the lowest in the world for comparable latitudes. Thunderstorms only occur around 5 days per year. Most observed lightning strikes occurred far to the east of Cerro Chascon, in Bolivia and Argentina. Lightning was detected primarily during the summer (December-March), particularly in the afternoon and evening (UT = 16h-1h). Morning (UT = 10h-14h) events were rare. There seem to be two types of storms - heavy storms from the west, and milder, but more common, storms from the east. No significant difference was found between the strike rates at Pampa La Bola and at Llano de Chajnantor. View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #487. http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma487/memo487.pdf ALMA MEMO #492 ALMA Calibration - Example of Scientific Impact Chris Carilli National Radio Astronomy Observatory 2004-05-04=20 Keywords: ALMA calibration, gallaxies - star forming, high redshift, dust - spectral energy distribution An example of the scientific impact of band-to-band calibration errors for ALMA is presented. The specific example entails constraining the temperature of a modified black body at high redshift. This experiment is one of the key goals in the study of the dust obscured star formation history of the universe. We find that 3% calibration errors between 250 and 350 GHz will constrain (at 3sigma ) the temperature of a warm (~50 K) dust compnent to only 20 K, while 10% calibration errors between 250 and 650 GHz provide a 3sigma contraint of 10 K. View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #492. http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma492/memo492.pdf ******************************************************************************* Please send information for upcoming calendars by Friday evening of the preceding biweekly period to Janet Bauer or Al Wootten via e-mail (jbauer@nrao.edu or awootten@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 may be created for this.