BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 14 July 2008 - 28 July 2008 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT************************* On 8 July, the ALMA transporter moved VertexRSI Antenna No 2 from the Site Erection Facility (SEF) Assembly Hall to an antenna station located outside the assembly hall but within the SEF, adjacent to the station on which VertexRSI Antenna No 1 sits. Congratulations to all involved in this impressive event. See www.alma.cl --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Carol J. Lonsdale will replace Chris Carilli as NRAO Assistant Director for the North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC), effective October 1, 2008. She will be located at the NAASC in Charlottesville. Chris Carilli has been appointed Chief Scientist of the NRAO. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery/index.html Sky: Jupiter's newest red spot disrupted during its encounter with the Great Red Spot and Oval BA. The International Space Station makes a favorable pass over the NAASC on 18 Jul rising at 9:47 passing at 56 degree elevation over the SE horizon three minutes later and shining at magnitude -2.4. A good pass over Chajnantor occurs 15 Jul at an elevation 76 deg above the NW horizon at 6:54pm glowing at mag -2.3. Cloudsat will overfly Chajnantor at 84 deg elevation on 21 Jul at 2:02 am. Comet C/2007 W1 (Boattini) is visible in the evening sky from the Southern Hemisphere. South of Sirius, the comet passes south of the Sun in mid-June, when it should reachmoving through Taurus at the border with Cetus shining at 6th magnitude. Mars and Saturn are evening objects, Mars passing close to Saturn early in the month. Jupiter remains bright in Sagittarius; Venus is in Aries. On 4 July, Earth will be at its furthest from the Sun in the decade, owing to the near-coincidence of aphelion with New Moon (3 July). First quarter: 06:35am Thursday, 10 July SCO (Santiago Central Office): Two bids were received for construction of the new building, to be located in Vitacura adjacent to the ESO building. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Weather report. Four of the six antenna stations near the AOS Technical Building (TB) have now received concrete: Nos 93, 101, 106 and 98. Utilities installation is expected during August. Grading of the Central Cluster area is complete. AOS TB acceptance preparation started. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): ALMA's Director accepted the OSF Technical Facility in June 2008. Planning for outfitting of the buildings has begun. The construction of the foundation and the access road to the adjacent holography tower No. 2 have been completed; the tower itself is due to arrive this fortnight. The holography receiver is to be installed on VertexRSI No 1 on 7 July; repairs completed on 6 July. Emerson went to the OSF to support Antenna IPT activities with the Vertex antennas for a 26 day period; he reports holography on VxNo1 to be going well. Antenna No. 2 now stands on a station adjacent to No 1 undergoing acceptance testing. No 3 begins acceptance soon; the HVAC system on No 4 has been commissioned; the Backup Structure has been lifted to No 5's pedestal and assembled. Pedestal for No 6 is being readied for shipment from Houston. Melco No 2 pointing tests continue. TUC: Optical Pointing Telescope (OPT) CDR tentatively scheduled for August. AOC: Preparations for the mid-July software review continue. ATF: de Gregorio, Nyman, Peck, Hunter and Andy Biggs (ESO ARC) provided support from science team. Total power testing continues, with interferometry problematic owing to weather and other problems. NTC (NRAO Technology Center): PAI testing for Band 6 (1.3mm) cartridge No 6 complete. Band 7 (.85mm) Cartridge No 6 was shipped to the European Front End Integration Center (FEIC). Band 9 (.45mm) Pre-production Review (PPR) scheduled for 8 July). Sixteen Band 9 frequency multipliers have been accepted and are being shipped. Three Band 8 frequency multipliers were shipped. A measurement team coninues to evaluate Front End (FE) No 2 at the NA FEIC. Construction of holography receiver #2 is 90% complete; shipment expected by end of August. The 64-antenna correlator first quadrant PAI meeting was held June 30. The first quadrant was approved for shipping; disassembly has begun. Use of the second quadrant for continued software development was approved. Fabrication, assembly and testing of Tunable Filter Board (TFB) cards in the 4th Quadrant continued with good success. NAASC: Wootten attended Polarization 2008 meeting in NE Quebec. 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 ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ************************* July 2 1430UT ASAC Telecon Telecon July 16-18 Software Review No 6. Aug 11-12 EPO face-to-face Ch'ville Sep 2 1430UT ASAC Telecon Telecon Sep 8-10 Simulation Workshop Grenoble Sep 9-11 ACA 7m antenna PPDR Itami Sep 12 ANASAC f2f meeting Charlottesville Sep 25-27 NAASC Workshop Charlottesville Sep 28-29 ASAC face-to-face Charlottesville Dec 9-11 ALMA Annual External Incremental Review OSF ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ************************* ELVA Memo #125: Performance Tests of the EVLA Ka-Band Receiver By: Rick Perley, Bob Hayward, Brigette Hesman (NRAO) Abstract: Sensitivity measurements performed with the Ka-band prototype receiver installed on EVLA antenna #4 show that the cold-sky zenith system temperature is between 50 and 65 K over the central 10 GHz of the passband, rising to a little over 70K at the band edges. Antenna tips show that ground spillover contributes about 22K at the vertical, while atmospheric emission rises smoothly from about 7K at 26 GHz to 12K at 40 GHz. Spillover appears to increase by about 2K for low elevation observations. Preliminary efficiency estimates were made using the quasar 3C273, and show the efficiency to be between 40 and 50%. This receiver meets the project requirements for sensitivity, despite the unexpectedly high spillover. View a pdf and ps version of EVLA Memo #125 at: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/evla/memolist.shtml *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST*************************** Registration is now open for "Transformational Science with ALMA: The Birth and Feedback of Massive Stars, Within and Beyond the Galaxy" A workshop to be held at the North American ALMA Science Center National Radio Astronomy Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia September 25-27 2008 Please see: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/php/meetings/massive08/ Abstract submission is now closed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A small workshop will be held at IRAM, Grenoble September 8 2008 on the topic of simulations of ALMA imaging. The goals are 1) To bring together the radio astronomy community with expertise in simulations of ALMA data to share experiences, ideas and code 2) To illustrate the power of ALMA in a small number of scientific fields through the presentation of simulations of ALMA science targets 3) To assess how simulations can be used to optimise the performance of ALMA once it is operational, by, for example, suggesting the optimal calibration strategies and observing modes The workshop web-page is: http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/~bn204/almasim08/ *************************************************************************** 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