BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 17 December 2007 - 31 Dec 2007 1 January 2008 - 14 Jan 2008 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT************************* The achievements ALMA has been able to obtain in 2007 have poised the project to assemble the first complete production system in Chile during 2008. Laying the groundwork for this, the ALMA Test Facility (ATF) in New Mexico has brought together most of the pieces of the ALMA interferometer to demonstrate the operation of the system. In June, a ceremony was held welcoming the Array Operations Site (AOS) Technical Building (TB), the nerve center for the array at an altitude of 5000m, to the collection of NRAO facilities in June on the occasion of NRAO’s 50th anniversary. During the first half of the new year the correlators will occupy the building; the first correlator has arrived in Chile from Japan and has been installed in the AOS TB. From April through year’s end, seven antennas have been delivered to Chile; the first antenna from Mitsubishi Electric Co. (MElCo) underwent holography and other tests during the final quarter of the year. Shortly, ALMA is expected to begin to accept antennas from the contractors for testing, leading to installation of the ALMA receiver package, undergoing its readiness reviews as this is written. The mighty transporters have been demonstrated in Germany have embarked on their journey to meet the antennas at the Operations Support Facility (OSF). The plan for operating the Joint ALMA Observatory was reviewed by an international committee in February, which led to the adoption by the ALMA Board of the ALMA Operations Plan, a blueprint for ALMA to produce its transformational science. Best wishes for a productive 2008! --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Atacama Compact Array Correlator has been installed in the AOS TB. Various power and heating and cooling tests are being performed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: Mars shines in the East after sunset, slowly growing smaller as Earth pulls ahead in the celestial race. A little later Saturn joins it in the evening sky. Venus is the bright morning star, with Jupiter low at Dawn. Past issues have noted Comet Tuttle; now radioastronomers have imaged the solid nucleus with the Arecibo planetary radar. The resulting image provides 300m resolution. According to J. K. Harmon and colleagues, the nucleus "is a strongly bifurcated object, possibly a contact binary, with two roughly spherical lobes measuring 3 and 4 km in diameter (+/- 25 percent)," according to IAU Circular #8909. An echo from large (>cm) sized grains in the coma was also reported. The comet remains a naked eye object. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): The ACA correlator is installed and tests continue. ite, 16570ft altitude): The ACA correlator is installed and tests continue. In the rest of the building, the computer floor has been installed; all technical rooms are prepared for equipment installation. Construction continues on the Hangar to shelter the transporter. The expected completion date of the transporter hangar is February 2007. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): There are 531 people working at the ALMA site. There was a holiday shutdown on major work. The Gatehouse on Chilean Highway 23 has been accepted, as has been the Warehouse element of the Technical Building complex; the remainder of the buildings in the complex will finish very soon. Modules have been erected for ALMA Camp extension stages three and four. One-third of panels have been installed on VxRSI antenna no 2; completion is expected in mid January 2008. The pedestal for the third antenna was placed in the Site Erection Facility building on 17 Dec; it arrived at the OSF on 12 Dec. ATF: Baseline solution at ATF is good enough to track fringes for several hours. These now show effects due to steps in the LO line length correction and evidence of further phase instabilities that remain to be investigated. Work ongoing this week. NTC (NRAO Technology Center): All 128 Tunable Filter Board (TFB) cards for the 2nd Quadrant have been received in CV. NAASC: 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 16 Dec - Beethoven's Birthday Mon 17 Dec - 4:00PM: ATF telecon Tue 18 Dec - 10:30AM: JAO/IPT telecon Wed 19 Dec - 10:30AM: Sci IPT telecon Thu 20 Dec - Fri 21 Dec - Sat 22 Dec - Sun 23 Dec - Mon 24 Dec - Tue 25 Dec - Christmas Wed 26 Dec - Thu 27 Dec - Fri 28 Dec - Sat 29 Dec - Sun 30 Dec - Mon 31 Dec - Gator Bowl's Eve Tue 1 Jan - Happy New Year! Wed 2 Jan - Thu 3 Jan - Fri 4 Jan - Sat 5 Jan - Sun 6 Jan - Mon 7 Jan - Tue 8 Jan - AAS Meeting, Austin Wed 9 Jan - AAS Meeting, Austin Thu 10 Jan - AAS Meeting, Austin Fri 11 Jan - AAS Meeting, Austin 12:40pm (EST) C. Brogan, Searching for the Secrets of Massive Star Birth Sat 12 Jan - Sun 13 Jan - Mon 14 Jan - ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ************************* Jan 8 ASAC Telecon Jan 10 NRAO Town Hall 12:45pm Austin Tx AAS Jan 15 ESAC face-to-face meeting Garching Jan 18 ANASAC telecon --- Jan 23-24 Nutator CDR ASIAA Feb 1-2 ASAC face-to-face Santiago ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ************************* *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST*************************** The Cosmic Agitator - Magnetic Fields in the Galaxy 60 years of studies of the interstellar magnetic field 2008 March 26-29 Lexington. The magnetic field of the galaxy was discovered in observations made in 1948. Since that time, the galactic magnetic field has challenged (and often annoyed) observers and theorists alike. This meeting will celebrate sixty years of studies of the interstellar magnetic field, a field ALMA's transformational capabilities will revolutionize. See http://thunder.pa.uky.edu/magnetic/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tenure Track Astronomers REQ NO: CV3631 SUMMARY: The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) invites outstanding applicants for one or more tenure-track astronomer positions, especially in the areas of time-domain astronomy, solar system research, exo-planets, Epoch of Re-ionization, structure formation, Dark Energy and Dark Matter. Candidates will be selected on both the basis of excellence in research and on their ability to further the mission of the Observatory. URL below. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Assistant Scientist (CASA) REQ NO: CV3682 SUMMARY: The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) invites applications for an astronomer, software engineer, or physicist with experience in astronomical data processing to develop data reduction software for the Atacama Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA). The Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) package is written primarily in C++ under a Python wrapper (for more information on CASA, see http://casa.nrao.edu/).This is an NRAO Scientist position, with 25% of time available to pursue independent research. The position will be based in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, at the North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jobs for scientists interested in working on the commissioning of ALMA are available at both ESO and NRAO. We invite applications for one or more Assistant Scientist positions in the NAASC. The primary responsibility of the successful candidates initially is to participate in ALMA Commissioning and Science Verification (CSV). http://www.nrao.edu/administration/personnel_office/careers.shtml For ESO jobs please see: https://jobs.eso.org/ESOCP370/default.asp?PageNo=DEFAULT For ALMA jobs please see: http://www.alma.cl/jobops/ *************************************************************************** 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