BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 13 March 2006 - 27 March 2006 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT**************************** On 2 March, at the US House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, the Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies there was a hearing on the NSF budget, at which there was testimony from Arden Bement, Director and Dr. Warren Washington, Chairman, National Science Board. Official release (Nothing there about ALMA though it was reportedly discussed.) http://www.nsf.gov/about/congress/109/highlights/cu06_0303.jsp ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The 2005 Distinguished Performance Awards have been announced. Congratulations to Bill Brundage, who has been instrumental to the ALMA Back End group for some years. Bill designed and built the IF downconverter employed at the AOC for ALMA tests. As Back End (BE) systems engineer, he has been devloping and tracking the requirements for the ALMA BE. Rich Lacasse, recently filling Ray Escoffier's place on the ALMA Correlator, also garnered an award--Congratulations, Rich! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 OSF: OSF construction bid was considered by the ESO Finance Committee; which requested more information. The Finance Committee will consider a revised submission at their 9-10 May meeting. Power station feasibility study under consideration. 154 persons are working on the site; 129 are housed in the local facilities. Road construction rough work is in progress at km 42. AOS: Shell finish scheduled during this fortnight. Architectural, mechanical, electrical finishes to technical building contract awaits approval by ALMA Board and NSF. Work is expected to begin in April. Santiago: The local hiring plan is under development by AUI. Preparations for the AMAC and ALMA Board meetings are under way. TUC: System Requirements Review follow up meeting planning settled on a time and venue of 26 and 27 April in Garching. AOC: Four digitizers running all the way through to the correlator. Some issues being tracked down. University of Kent reports a favorable polarization performance of the antenna fiber optic cable wrap; two additional wraps have been delivered to PSI for evaluation. Offline (AIPS++) test #4 started. This is the first test using the new Python framework. Functionally it is based on commissioning (1-baseline interferometry) needs. Lin will join the Socorro based Computing IPT as an NAOJ supplied developer (Pipeline/Scheduling). Two Line length Correctors (LLC) and their connecting fixture were inserted in the optical path of the LO sub-system. Characterization of the sub-system phase drift has begun. ATF: First end-to-end integrated user test of the software and hardware completed for the optical pointing use case. System worked e2e on the Vertex antenna. Clouds prevented obtaining good pointing model. Final report being written. Identical hardware and software being install on the AEC antenna. End-to-end tests on AEC system expected in April (exact date TBD). NTC: Intensive testing of the Tunable Filter Bank (TFB) II card is scheduled for the week of March 13, with participation from Europe and Ray Escoffier. Construction of correlator quadrant #2 continued. About 70% of the Monitor and Control (M&C) cabling has been installed. NAASC: Crystal Brogan has arrived and begun her work. Tony Rodriguez will begin work 20 March as NA Antenna IPT Quality Assurance Production Engineer. A calibration telecon was held specific emphasis was placed on cross calibration of the 12m array and elements of the ACA. *************************************************************************** DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT ) see https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar Mon 13 Mar Tue 14 Mar 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Martes, Marzo 14, 2006. 13:30 EST E.S.O. LUNCH TALK, Vitacura Prof. Dr. Reinhard Genzel, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik, Garching, Germany & UCB. "Dynamics of z~2 Galaxies" 18:30 EST COLLOQUIUM DEPARTAMENTO DE ASTRONOMIA P.U.Catolica Jose Fiestas, Astronomisches Rechen-Institut Heidelberg, Germany. "Dynamical Evolution of rotating globular Clusters with embedded Black Holes" 18:30 EST E.S.O. ASTROPHYSICAL SEMINAR ESO Conference Room, Vitacura. Dr. Steve Howell, WIYN Observatory & NOAO, USA & ESO Visiting Scientist. "Detection of the Onset of chromospheric Activity on a substellar Mass Star" Wed 15 Mar 9:30 AM: ScienceIPT teleconference 3:30 pm: Astrochemistry Group Meeting, U. Va. Thu 16 Mar 18:30 EST E.S.O. ASTROPHYSICAL SEMINAR, ESO Conference Room, Vitacura. Prof. Dr. Pavel Kroupa, Argelander Institute for Astronomy, University of Bonn, Germany & ESO Visiting Scientist. "The Origin and Nature of dSph Satellite Galaxies" 18:30 EST COLOQUIO DEPARTAMENTO DE ASTRONOMIA P.U.Catolica Dr. Pavel Kroupa, AIfA Sternwarte, University of Bonn. "The stellar IMF of simple and composite Populations" Fri 17 Mar St. Patrick's Day Sat 18 Mar Sun 19 Mar Mon 20 Mar All Day: ALMA Bilateral partners retreat, Kyoto Tue 21 Mar Spring! All Day: ALMA Management Advisory Committee meeting, Kyoto Wed 22 Mar All Day: ALMA Management Advisory Committee meeting, joined by Board pm Thu 23 Mar All Day: ALMA Board Meeting, Kyoto Fri 24 Mar All Day: ALMA Board Meeting, Kyoto Sat 25 Mar Sun 26 Mar ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS **************************** March 21-22 all day AMAC Meeting Kyoto, Japan March 23-24 all day ALMA Board Meeting Kyoto, Japan April 5 1500 UT ASAC Telecon April 5 1:30 EST NAASC Telecon April 28 1900 UT ANASAC Telecon June 13-14 all day ALMA Board Meeting OSF Sept 22-23 evening Dave Matthews Band CV JPJ Arena opening November 9-10 all day ALMA Board Meeting Madrid TBD Nov 13-16 all day Science with ALMA: a new era for Astrophysics Madrid ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS **************************** ******************************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************** 2nd pan-ALMA Conference : 2nd Announcement Dear Colleague, The 2nd pan-ALMA conference on "Science with ALMA: a new era for Astrophysics" will be held 13-16 November 2006 in Madrid, Spain. The venue will be the campus of the CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas), in the centre of town. Information on the 2nd pan-ALMA meeting is available via http://www.oan.es/alma2006/ (final slash is mandatory) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALMA presentations at the January Zmachine meeting are available on line through links at www.zmachines.net --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anne Dutrey informs us of a CNRS post-doctoral position at the Observatory of Bordeaux. The position is opened for two years and will start on september 2006 at the Observatory of Bordeaux. The application deadline is June 2006. The position is dedicated to the modelling of chemistry in proto-planetary disks in order to interpret observational data obtained with the IRAM array. Interested people can read the dedicated CNRS web page http://www.k-projects.com/cnrs_postdocs/public/departement_details.php?IdDpt=9&Dep=SDU&NumOffre=2&Langue=en --------------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** Please send information for upcoming calendars by Friday evening of the preceding biweekly period to Jennifer Neighbours or Al Wootten via e-mail (jneighbo@nrao.edu or awootten@nrao.edu). Now in its third year, 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