BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 12 Feb 2007 - 28 Feb 2007 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*************************** The ESO Director General announced 14 Feb at the "State of ESO" Annual meeting that the French Foreign Ministry had just sent her confirmation of the its receipt of the Document that completes the Spanish accession to ESO. He states that this was the last formality to make Spain a "Full" member of ESO. At the 15 Feb ALMA Board telecon, the DG welcomed Spain to ESO. Other Board members joined the welcome. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The President signed H.J.RES.20 on 15 Feb 2007, making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2007 through 30 Sept 2007. Reportedly, this fully funds the President's request, including increases for NSF. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: Continuing appropriations through 9/30/2007. Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html See also the JAO ALMA Calendar overview at: http://www.alma.cl/alma_project Photos of ALMA Construction activity may be found at: http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery/index.html *************************************************************************** General Happenings Sky: Saturn's current opposition is the best for several years, with the planet heading for aphelion and its ring system moving toward low inclination over the next few years. Venus climbs higher in the evening sky as Mercury flees from sight. C/2006 P1 McNaught is fading through magnitude 4 this period with a tail shrinking from ten degrees as it passes through the constellation Indus. Santiago: Planning continues for the Operations Plan reviews culminating in Washington the week of 26 Feb, and for a meeting of the JAO and IPT leads, to occur in Chile 9-12 March. Version C of the Array Operations Plan was distributed to the Board and Reviewers. Alvaro Leiva, ALMA Human Resources Manager, has resigned his position within the Joint ALMA Observatory to return to the private corporate sector; we wish him all the best in the future and thank him for his contributions over the past year. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Snow and poor weather have hampered observing the past week. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): Work continues on the Vertex Site Erection Facility, the Operations Support Facility Technical Building and Warehouse, and associated infrastructure from water tanks to tennis court. Please see the photos at the link above. Cameras for infrared rat monitoring program on the road are in hand. Currently there are 387 persons working on the site. ATF: Fringes from the holography transmitter through the receivers and the system to the correlator were demonstrated on 9 February. The next step is to achieve astronomical interferometry. Pointing of the antennas, an important step toward that goal, continues. AOC: ALMA Simulation Software testing occurred last week. NTC (NRAO Technology Center, Charlottesville): A paper 'The ALMA Correlator' has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 462, p. 801-810 (January 07 issue). Testing of correlator modes is making good progress. Electromagnetic compatibility testing of the dewar with four front end cartridges continues to produce good results. NAASC: A calendar of NAASC events may be found at: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/calendar/calendar.php Reid and Brogan are participating in ALMA Simulation Software testing and development. A number of ALMA-related science discussions will occur during the next fortnight: 16 February 4pm Molecular Astrophysics Discussion Group Jarron Leisenring (UVa) "Constraining the Dust Condensation Sequence of AGB stars in the LMC", and Gail Zasowski (UVa) "Characteristics of Ices Around Low-Mass Protostars" 16 February 4pm Radford U. Physics Colloquium Al Wootten "ALMA" 22 February 4pm NRAO Colloquium Antonio Hales, NRAO "Probing the Environments of Planet Formation" 23 February 4pm Star Formation Discussion Group TBA Registration for the workshop 'Transformational Science with ALMA: Through Disks to Stars and Planets' to be held 22-24 June 2007 is under way: See http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/disk07/ *************************************************************************** DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar Mon 12 Feb - Lincoln's Birthday Tue 13 Feb - 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon 4:00 PM-5:00 PM: NAScienceIPT teleconference Wed 14 Feb - Valentine's Day 10:00AM: SSR Telecon 11:00AM: NA Board Telecaucus Thu 15 Feb - 4:30pm: ALMA Board Telecon Fri 16 Feb - Spitzer proposal deadline Sat 17 Feb - 11:14AM: Full Moon Sun 18 Feb - Mon 19 Feb - President's Day (NRAO Holiday) Tue 20 Feb - 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 21 Feb - 9:30AM: Science IPT Telecon Thu 22 Feb - Washington's birthday Fri 23 Feb - Sat 24 Feb - Sun 25 Feb - Mon 26 Feb - ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS **************************** Feb 15 ALMA Board Telecon Telecon Feb 27-8 all day ALMA Ops Plan Review NSF Mar 1 all day ALMA/NAASC Plan Review NSF Mar 7 ASAC Telecon Mar 9 ANASAC Telecon Mar 9-12 all day IPT F2F MEETING Chile ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *************************** ALMA Memo # 565: Walsh Function Definition for ALMA Author: Darrel Emerson Abstract: ALMA has chosen to use a set of 128 orthogonal Walsh functions, both for the sideband separation using 90-degree phase switching at the first local oscillator, and for spurious rejection using 180-degree phase switching at the first local oscillator with demodulation by means of a digital sign change shortly after the digitizer. A set of orthogonal Walsh functions can be defined and ordered in many different ways (PAL, Natural or Paley ordering, WAL, CAL & SAL sequency ordering) and with different phasing definitions (e.g. Harmuth phasing or 'positive phasing') It is proposed here that ALMA standardize on set of Walsh functions in WAL order with positive phasing. A numerical table is included, and is available in machine readable form. View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #565 at: http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma565/memo565.pdf *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************** SMA CALL FOR PROPOSALS Deadline: 1 March 2007 The Submillimeter Array (SMA), the radio interferometer on Mauna Kea built by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, makes available a fraction of the observing time to principal investigators from the astronomical community (worldwide). The proposal deadline is 1 March 2007 for the observing semester 1 May 2007 through 31 October 2007. More information, technical details, and instructions and tools for proposal preparation and submission can be found starting in February at http://sma1.sma.hawaii.edu/, the SMA Observer Center web site. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Herschel Key Program Announcement of Opportunity NHSC Website: http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/Herschel/nhsc.shtml ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Observing Proposals for Arizona Radio Observatory Telescopes (internal Call Only) Deadline for Observing Proposals is Feb 16, 2007. See http://aro.as.arizona.edu *************************************************************************** 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