BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 24 Sept 2007 - 8 October 2007 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT************************* Jeff Kern reports from the ATF that ALMA achieved another milestone on the path to dynamic fringeson 2 Oct. Stable fringes were achieved on Mercury using a polynomial for the geometric delay provided by Emerson. Fringes were observed for approximately 2 hours with no human interaction. Afterwards, fringes were observed on 3C279. Although the weather was cloudy, the system included many key ALMA devices. Delays were set in the correlator and Digitizer Clock, and fringe tracking done in the First Local Oscillator Offset Generator. Congratulations to everyone who has worked hard to get ALMA to this point. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The pedestal for Vertex Antenna #2 is erect in the Site Erection Facility. The operation went smoothly and took about an hour 27 Sept. A photo of this as well as of the assembled Vertex Antenna #1 is available at http://www.nrao.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 continues to beckon the attention of the ALMA prototype antennas high in the morning sky, Jupiter dominates the same evening sky. The Moon, Venus and Regulus convene in the early morning sky at the end of the biweek. Venus, Saturn and Regulus party together on 9 October. C/2007 F1 (LONEOS) is approaching the Sun, at magnitude 7.2 now it expected to reach naked eye visibility by Halloween (0.4AU from the Sun). In the Southern Hemisphere, it will appear in the evening sky at 4-5 mag in early November. SCO (Santiago Central Office): Preparations are being made for the ALMA Board meeting in Chile at the end of October, followed by the AMAC review. TUC: ALMA and EVLA brochures were provided for the meeting 'Astrophysics in the Next Decade: JWST and Concurrent Facilities' attended by many ALMA personnel. Fomalont and Wootten met with Holdaway and Emerson in the NRAO offices. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Weather began the period with several millimeters of precipitable water at the APEX telescope but for the last half of the fortnight measurements were generally around 0.5mm of precipitable water. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): There are 490 people working at the ALMA site. Final contractor testing of the first VertexRSI and Melco antennas is beginning. The second VertexRSI antenna mount arrived in Chile and is being erected in the site erection facility. An OSF weather station was installed, with sensors on the holography tower now operational. ATF: Emerson and Mangum produced a good radiometric pointing model for the ATF, enabling attainment of static fringes on Mercury. Napier evaluated system efficiencies using static fringes on Mercury and tipping curves. AOC: A replacement CFRP section for the VertexRSI quadrupod leg arrived; installation is expected to commence in about four weeks. Juan Salazar was hired as LO Antenna Technician. Welcome, Juan! NTC (NRAO Technology Center and ALMA Front End Integration Center): Measurements of the FE assembly test station mechanical stability were made. The Computing IPT successfully communicated with a completed FE assembly. In Grenoble, Band 7 (0.87mm) Cartridge #8 (last pre-production unit !!!) Provisional Acceptance In-house (PAI) was successfully completed on 17th September. The PAI for all pre-production Band 3 (3mm) warm optics, 8 sets, was also completed. Stephen Nuttall has been hired as a Photonics technician starting 2007-09-24. Welcome Stephen! Assembly for the 2nd Quadrant os the ALMA Correlator is nearly complete. NAASC: Helped develop CASA beta release and User Support document. Planning for CASA user support (tutorial, helpdesk design). Helped finalize version D of the ALMA Operations Plan. 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 23 Sep - Mon 24 Sep - 4:00PM: ATF telecon Tue 25 Sep - Wed 26 Sep - Harvest Moon Thu 27 Sep - Fri 28 Sep - Sat 29 Sep - Sun 30 Sep - Mon 1 Oct - 4:00PM: ATF telecon Tue 2 Oct 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 3 Oct - 1:00pm: NAASC telecon Thu 4 Oct - Fri 5 Oct - Sat 6 Oct - Sun 7 Oct - Mon 8 Oct - Columbus Day Holiday (most of US) 4:00PM: ATF telecon ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ************************* Sep 26 B3 CDR Victoria Oct 1-2 B6 CDR Cville Oct 29-31 ALMA Board Meeting Santiago&San Pedro Nov 1-2 AMAC Review Santiago Nov 13-15 Production Review Cville-ER ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ************************* The On The Fly imaging technique has been described in a paper of the same name by J. G. Mangum, D. T. Emerson and E. W. Greisen in the November issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol 474, p. 679-687. All 12m ALMA antennas will be capable of imaging using this technique. *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST*************************** Proposals for observing time on the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory on Mauna Kea for the semester 1st February-31st July 2008 should be sent by 31st October 2007 to T. G. Phillips, Caltech 320-47, Pasadena, CA 91125. For further information please refer to the CSO web site at http://www.submm.caltech.edu/cso. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The deadline for proposals to use NRAO telescopes (GBT, VLA, VLBA) is 1700 EDT Friday, 1 October 2007. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Funding of US participation in Open Time Key Programs: Key Program Data Analysis (DA/KP) has a deadline for proposal submission of October 26, 2007 at 5.00 pm PDT. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jobs for scientists interested in working on the commissioning of ALMA are available at both ESO and NRAO. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory invites applications for an ALMA Commissioning Scientist position. This position is assigned to the ALMA project with operational duties in Chile. The role of the ALMA Commissioning Scientist will be to assist the Project Scientist and the Deputy Project Scientist in planning and executing the scientific commissioning of ALMA. 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). Women and minority candidates are encouraged to apply. 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/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Applications are invited for Submillimeter Array (SMA) Postdoctoral Fellowships starting in fall 2008. These positions are aimed chiefly at research in submillimeter astronomy, and the successful candidates are expected to propose and participate in science observations with the SMA. See http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/opportunities/fellowships/sma/ Please direct questions to smapostdoc@cfa.harvard.edu. Online applications are due December 15, 2007. *************************************************************************** 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