BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 13 August - 27 August 2007 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT************************* Dr. Robert L. Dickman will be the new Assistant Director for New Mexico Operations, beginning on October 1, 2007. He was selected as the top choice after a comprehensive world-wide search process. While in the NSF Astronomy Division over the past 15 years, he held a number of key positions, including Coordinator of the Radio Astronomy Facilities Unit and ALMA Program Manager. He served on the ALMA Board for five years and for a year was Chair of the ALMA Board. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- On 1 September, Tim de Zeeuw became the new ESO Director General, succeeding Catherine Cesarsky. He also becomes a member of the ALMA Board. In an interview, Dr. de Zeeuw commented on ALMA: "I see three main goals for ESO in the coming years. The first one is to get the best possible science out of the Very Large Telescope, the interferometer and the survey telescopes, all of them on Paranal. The second is to build ALMA, the new observatory at 5 000 metres in the high Andes. Together with our North American and East Asian partners, we need to deliver this on budget and on time, and prepare the European astronomers for leading the science. The third main goal is to design a world-leading Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which may have a main mirror with a diameter larger than 40 metres ..." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ronald N. Bracewell, 86, an astronomer and engineer who made many contributions to radio astronomy and to medical imaging died of a heart attack on Aug. 12 at his home in Stanford, Calif. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Alpher also died Sunday, Aug. 12, in Austin, Texas at age 86. The National Medal of Science had been awarded him in a White House ceremony on July 27. The citation reads in part: Ò... for the prediction that universe expansion leaves behind background radiation, and for providing the model for the Big Bang theory.Ó ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 *********************************************************************** General Happenings Photos of activity may be found at: http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery/index.html Sky: A total eclipse of the Moon occurs before and/or during dawn 2007 Aug 28. SCO (Santiago Central Office): Preparations for ALMA Annual External Review. ALMA Board meets in SCO in late October, AMAC in early November, and an ALMA Production Review will be held the second week of November. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Excellent sky transparency closed out the period with PWV well below 1mm PWV. Award of a contract to build the Transporter Hangar at the AOS was approved by the NSF August 13. Work has begun leading to expected conclusion by the end of 2007. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): There were 477 people working on the ALMA site. Work continues on the Vertex antenna at the Vertex laydown area and on the three Melco antennas at their laydown area. The AEM laydown area is being prepared. Work on the OSF Technical Facility building continues. ATF: Interviews are being held for 2 additional operators. The plan is to have the new operators come to the ATF for training later this year and stay until the ATF closes down on 2008 June 1. Current operators at the ATF will move back to Chile to support OSF operations in 2007 Dec. Beginning 2007 Sep 1, ATF operations management will shift from the Prototype System Integration (PSI) team to the Computing IPT. The goal is to move the ATF toward being run more like an observatory with regularly scheduled observations rather than an integration test bed. NTC (NRAO Technology Center): Acceptance testing of the sixth B3 (3mm) cartridge has begun. At present, noise temperature and image rejection measurements for the first ALMA Front End are in progress. Assembly and testing of the second ALMA holography transmitter, receiver, and positioner are in progress. NAASC: The ANASAC met at the NAASC on 17 August. The meeting went well, with responses to charges communicated to NRAO Director. They are available at: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/admin.shtml A period of CASA testing commences 20 August. A calendar of NAASC events may be found at: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/calendar/calendar.php *************************************************************************** DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar Sun 12 Aug - Mon 13 Aug - 3:30PM: PSI/ATF telecon Tue 14 Aug - 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 15 Aug - 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: Sci IPT Telecon Thu 16 Aug - Fri 17 Aug - ANASAC and ASAC/NA meeting, Charlottesville Sat 18 Aug - Sun 19 Aug - Mon 20 Aug - Tue 21 Aug - 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 22 Aug - Thu 23 Aug - Fri 24 Aug - Sat 25 Aug - Sun 26 Aug - Mon 27 Aug - Tues 28 Aug - 6:35 a.m.--Full Moon. Eclipse. ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ************************* Aug 17 ANASAC f2f Cville Aug 26-30 Naramata Summer School Naramata,BC,Canada Sep 3 ALMA/Eu Community Day ESO Sep 5 ASAC Telecon Sep 10-12 Ann. ALMA External Rev Santiago Sep 13 ALMA Board Telecon Sep 27-28 B3 CDR Victoria Oct 1-2 B6 CDR Cville Oct 28-31 ALMA Board Meeting Santiago&San Pedro ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ************************* *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST*************************** Proposals for observations using CARMA during the period 1 January to 30 June 2008 are due on 13 September 2007. Detailed information, including capabilities to be offered this semester, sensitivities, and proposal submission instructions, may be found at the CARMA website, http://www.mmarray.org. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Potential ALMA users will be interested in the upcoming "Astrophysics in the Next Decade: JWST and Concurrent Facilities" meeting to be held in Tucson, AZ, 2007 September 24-27. The goals of this meeting are to engage the community in the exciting science that JWST, ALMA, EVLA, VLT/Gemini+2ndGen Instruments, and other exciting new facilities will enable in the 2010-2020 period. See http://www.stsci.edu/institute/conference/jwst2007 *************************************************************************** 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