BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 1 January 2007 - 15 January 2007 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*************************** NRAO Town Meeting at the 2007 Winter AAS Meeting in Seattle Washington. The NRAO Town Meeting at the Seattle AAS will take place next Monday, 8 January, 12:45 - 01:45 p.m. in location 6A. The NRAO Town Meeting agenda is: Introduction & ALMA K.Y. Lo VLA/EVLA & VLBA J. Ulvestad GBT F.J. Lockman See you there! A copy of the ALMA pamphlet to be distributed may be obtained at: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/presentations/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ALMA's Year in 2007 Happy New Year to all! This will be a busy year for the ALMA Project. In this observer's view, the following items will headline ALMA's 2007 progress: * ALMA Board, funding agency review of ALMA Operations Plan * First astronomical interferometry ALMA Test Facility (ATF), Socorro * Array Operation Site Technical Building (AOS TB) Completion by NRAO * First antennas (VertexRSI) at Operations Support Facility (OSF) * First ALMA receiver packages delivered from NRAO NTC to ATF and to OSF * First transporter at Operations Support Facility * ALMA bilateral correlator from NRAO NTC installed at the AOS TB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- There is a regular rotation of the Chair of the ALMA Board and the Board Secretary with a two year cycle. This rotation has taken effect on 1 Jan 2007. On that date, Prof. Anneila Sargent, outgoing Chair, and Pat Donahoe, outgoing Secretary, hand over their duties to the incoming Chair, Prof. Richard Wade, and the new Secretary Prof. T. L. Wilson. All of us in the Project express our appreciation to the outgoing Chair and Secretary for the job they have accomplished in the past years. We welcome the new Chair and Secretary. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Sky: C/2006 P1 (McNaught) was 4.5 mag on Dec. 26 (Piotr Guzik), then it brightened rapidly up to 1.5 mag on Jan. 3 (Haakon Dahle). It will pass only 0.17 A.U. from the sun in mid January, and reach -2 mag. Beware that the comet will be very close to the Sun at this time and it may be dangerous to attempt observations with the naked eye. However, because the comet is very bright, it is visible in the extremely low sky in the twilight if the sky conditions are excellent. After January 6th it becomes mainly an evening target. It will pass only 40 arcmin from Mercury on Jan. 14 at 16 o'clock (UT). Because the comet is moving southwards, it will be unobservable in the Northern Hemisphere soon. In the Southern Hemisphere, it appears at around 2 mag in late January, then it keeps observable while fading gradually while ALMA is built. Santiago: Juan Carlos Inostroza has joined the group as PMCS System Administrator, sharing Kevin Long's office at the JAO. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Work continues toward completion of the building during the first half of the year. The 'alitplanic winter' seems to be setting in--there has been more 1-6 millimeters of precipitable water vapor this past week at APEX. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): Work continues toward completion of the building. The webcam shows grey skies... TUC: Half the NRAO Tucson personnel have been supporting work at the ATF. NTC (NRAO Technology Center, Charlottesville): NAASC: A number of ALMA-related science discussions will occur during the latter half of the month. 18 Jan NRAO 4pm Simon Radford, Caltech "The Cornell Caltech Atacama Telescope" 19 Jan NRAO 4pm Astrophysical Molecules Discussion Group meeting "Thioformaldehyde in the ISM" 22 Jan U.Va.4pm Dr. Alan P. Boss, CIW, "Giant Planet Formation: Theory vs. Observations" 25 Jan NRAO 4pm Doug Johnstone, NRC/HIA, "Understanding How Star Formation Proceeds in the Perseus and Ophiuchus Molecular Clouds" Registration for the workshop 'Transformational Science with ALMA: Through Disks to Stars and Planets' to be held 22-24 June 2007 is under way: See http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/disk07/ ATF: Holography on the VertexRSI prototype antenna is finished. VertexRSI personnel will be at the antenna during the second week of January. *************************************************************************** DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar Mon 1 Jan - International Holiday. Happy New Year! Tue 2 Jan - Wed 3 Jan - Earth is at the perihelion of its orbit 8:57am - Full Moon 1:00pm - NAASC Telecon 4:00pm - NA Science IPT telecon Thu 4 Jan Fri 5 Jan Sat 6 Jan - Sun 7 Jan - AAS Meeting, Seattle Mon 8 Jan - AAS Meeting, Seattle Tue 9 Jan - AAS Meeting, Seattle 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 10 Jan - AAS Meeting, Seattle 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: ASAC Telecon Thu 11 Jan Fri 12 Jan Sat 13 Jan Sun 14 Jan Mon 15 Jan Martin Luther King Day USA R. E. Lee-Stonewall Jackson-M. L. King Day (Virginia) ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS **************************** Jan 10 ASAC Telecon Jan 16-17 '07 all day Transporter FDR Jan 16-17 '07 all day ESO Ops Review Jan 18 '07 ALMA Board telecon Jan 24-25 all day PSI Review Socorro Jan 26 1900UT ANASAC Telecon Jan 29-30 '07 all day B9 Cartridge CDR Jan 30-1 Feb all day AEM antenna PPDR Mestre Feb 6-7 B9 cartridge CDR Groningen Feb 15 ALMA Board Telecon Telecon Feb 27-8 all day ALMA Ops Plan Review NSF Mar 1 all day ALMA/NAASC Plan Review NSF Mar 9-12 all day IPT F2F MEETING Chile ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *************************** ALMA Memo # 566: Reflectivity, scattering and emissivity measurements on samples of prospective ALMA reflector panels Authors: Jacob W.M. Baars, Bernard Buzzoni, Hans-Peter Gemünd and A. Polsak Abstract: This memo was written in 2001 but owing to the sensitive nature of the prototype antenna construction its public appearance has been delayed until now. View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #566 which will be at: http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma566/memo566.pdf *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************** *************************************************************************** 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