BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 19 May 2008 - 2 June 2008 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT************************* ALMA/NA Front End Number 1, including Bands 3 (3mm), 6 (1.3mm), 7 (.87 mm) and 9 (.45 mm) was successfully reassembled, cooled and tested at the OSF by a team from Charlottesville which included Christian Holmstedt, Andrea Vaccari, Denis Urbain, Morgan McLeod, and Kamaljet Saini under the leadership of Antonio Perfetto. Congratulations to the Front End team for achieving this milestone so successfully. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tropical Storm ALMA moved through Nicaragua. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: 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 reach 5th magnitude as it passes about a quarter AU from Earth and 0.85 AU from the Sun. The Atacama Compact Array is ideal for observing comets, as it is always in a compact configuration well-suited for diffuse objects. See: http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/2007W1/2007W1.html and watch for it to reappear to the eye in early July. In the radio, it has been displaying strong OH lines at Nancay, with a production rate of about 5 x 10(28) molecules per second (http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/planeto/cometes/basecom/BT/btnanctable.txt) though the line is now in absorption as expected. See: http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/planeto/cometes/basecom/BT/btpredi.jpg for the predicted OH line intensities. Watch for the Ophiuchid meteors on June 20. Before dawn on June 30, the crescent moon passes through the Pleiades, best seen from North America. Mars and Saturn are nighttime objects, Jupiter is in Sagittarius and Venus in Aries. Northern summer solistice occurs 21 June. SCO (Santiago Central Office) : A Face to face meeting of the Science Operations IPT was held in Santiago. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): An internal design review of the AOS antenna station layout, interconnecting road system, power and fiber optic layout will be held 10-12 June. Road work, trenching, power and fiber optic connections for Pad 93, adjacent to the Technical Building, will be completed by August for testing of the first antenna at the AOS. Work began on grading of the area for the central cluster, and is 60% complete; full completion is expected in mid-June. A permanent communication link will be started immediately between AOS and OSF. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): HVAC acceptance tests will occur this fortnight on VertexRSI antanna No 1. Photogrammetry is in progress on antenna No 2, shortly to be moved outside the Erection Facility building. Electrical work on No 3 is nearing completion; panels are being installed on No 4 and No 5 is due in port. AOC: CASA Patch #2 development frozen; now in the final integration/testing phase. ATF: Pending further developments, the ATF will remain in operation through 1 September. A 17 May brake failure on the AEC antenna was caused by a failed solenoid after a power outage; by 21 May functionality was restored. Software functionality test scheduled soon. The number of science objects being observed in the evenings is growing. Focus is on carbon stars and star forming regions (with CS lines) and quasars for practice doing a calibrator survey. NTC (NRAO Technology Center): An Expert Team meets 7-9 June at the NA Front End Integration Center (FEIC) to help establish technical readiness of the FEICs and to verify the Front End assembly design concept. Subsequent meetings in June will occur in Taipei and Rutherford Appleton Labs in the UK. Provisional Acceptance Site for the First ALMA Front End was held in the period ending just before this fortnight. Band 6 (1.3mm) SN09, the first production cartridge, has been built up to the 4K stage and is awaiting delivery of LO waveguide. At the FEIC/NA, Front End SN02 was re-mounted with all four cartridges installed, and cooled satisfactorily. The second quadrant of the bilateral correlator is completely assembled and ready for full circuit card population; handover to the Computing IPT for systems verification will occur shortly. NAASC: Additions and edits have continued on the molecular spectroscopy database - Splatalogue. Specifically, a new fit to acetic acid (CH3COOH) has been added as well as the ability to select multiple species to search. Splatalogue will be presented by A. Remijan at the 63rd OSU meeting in Columbus, OH on June 19, 2008. A face-to-face meeting of ALMA Operations personnel occurred this period in Santiago. 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 ************************* May 21 ASAC Telecon May 23 2pm ANASAC Telecon May 28-29 1st LO and WCA Manufacturing Readiness Review Cville June 2-5 AAS Meeting St. Louis June 16-18 Master Laser, Laser Synthesizer CDR Quebec City June 16-17 ALMA 2008 Worksop Madrid June 19 63rd OSU Symposium Molecular Spectroscopy Ohio June 23-27 Band 9 Preproduction Review June 23-27 Band 9 Manufacturing Readiness Review July 2 1430UT ASAC Telecon Telecon Sep 2 1430UT ASAC Telecon Telecon Sep 9-11 ACA 7m antenna PPDR Osaka Sep 28-29 ASAC face-to-face Charlottesville Dec 9-11 ALMA Annual External Incremental Review OSF ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ************************* *****************************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