BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 26 Mar 2007 - 9 April 2007 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*************************** The ALMA Board held the first of its 2007 meetings in Tokyo at the National Center of Sciences of Japan, not far from the moated grounds of the Imperial Palace. Dr. Yoshiro Shimura, President of the National Institute of Natural Sciences, welcomed the Board members to Tokyo with remarks on the bright future of ALMA and extended his heartfelt wishes that the Board members might enjoy their stay in Tokyo. Among other topics, Rick Murowinski reported on the achievement of the first fringes at the ALMA Test Facility in New Mexico. The Joint ALMA Office presented a plaque commemorating this milestone to Richard Wade, the Chairman of the ALMA Board. The AUI/NRAO - NAOJ Master Agreement for ALMA Goods and Services was signed by NRAO Director K. Y. Lo and NAOJ Director General S. Miyama on 2007 March 27. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: Venus shines brightly as the evening star in the west this month. Saturn rides high in the evening sky, and Jupiter and Mars highlight the morning sky. The Moon shines waning near Jupiter at dawn on Easter Sunday. SCO: The ALMA Board received the Operations Plan review from the Chair of the panel, Pierre Cox, in Tokyo and asked the JAO for its response. Design documents for the new central building were received; committees to consider the documents are being formed. The AMAC will meet in Santiago 29-30 Jun, just after the Board meets there on 27-28 June. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): The tender for construction of the first antenna foundations at the AOS was released 2007 March 6. Bids for the AOS Technical Building Transporter Hangar have been received. On 4 Apr, Precipitable Water Vapor at APEX was ~0.4mm. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): There are 436 people working at the OSF site. The VertexRSI antenna No. 1 pedestal is in transit to the OSF from Houston, as are backup structure elements shipped from Germany. Mockup racks were successfully delivered for AIPS1-PAS (Antenna Integration Point Chile - (antenna #) 1 Provisional Acceptance on-Site). ATF: Radiometric pointing improvements continue to be attempted. Holography tests have resumed, with acceptance tests scheduled on the Vertex antenna. Optical pointing will resume with the AEC antenna with a goal of acceptance in the coming fortnight. AOC: First pre-production on-axis fiber optic cable wrap assembled. The offline CASA test is completed and the test report has been posted to http://tinyurl.com/2csths . CASA simulator work continues toward community release 2007 Q2. Nicolas Troncoso, new member of the AIV (Assembly, Integration and Verification) team, will be in Socorro for training. NTC (NRAO Technology Center): Provisional Acceptance In-house (PAI) measurements for B6 (1.3mm) cartridge No 2 completed; it is installed in a dewar. Front End Integration Center (FEIC) Documentation being updated. At the NA FEIC beam patterns for B6, B7 (.85mm) and B9 (.65mm) were measured. Upgraded Holography transmitter and receiver No. 1 was shipped to the ATF. Assembly and test of the 2-antenna correlator has begun. NAASC: CASA simulator development were pursued as McMullin and Golap visit the NAASC. Some early results developed by Reid were shown the ALMA Board. Hales and Emerson working at the ATF. A calendar of NAASC events may be found at: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/calendar/calendar.php A number of ALMA-related science discussions will occur during the next fortnight at the NAASC; see the listings below. 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/ for schedule. *************************************************************************** DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar Mon 26 Mar - ALMA Board meeting, Tokyo Tue 27 Mar - ALMA Board meeting, Tokyo 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 28 Mar - Euronews Space Magazine visits OSF Thu 29 Mar - 4:00 pm - Mike Skrutskie, UVa "Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer WISE" Fri 30 Mar - Sat 31 Mar - Sun 1 Apr - Mon 2 Apr - Deputy Project Scientist Alison Peck joins JAO Santiago 1:15 pm - Full Moon Tue 3 Apr - 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon 4:00 pm: Aaron Evans Stony Brook University "Luminous Infrared Galaxies and the Host Galaxies of Quasi-Stellar Objects" Wed 4 Apr - 10:30 am: ASAC Telecon Thu 5 Apr - 1:00pm - Star Formation discussion group, NAASC. Special guest M. Heyer. 4:00 pm: Mark Heyer, U. Mass. "Interstellar Turbulence in Molecular Clouds" Fri 6 Apr - NRAO Spring Holiday; Chile and Germany Good Friday Sat 7 Apr - Sun 8 Apr - Mon 9 Apr - ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS **************************** Mar 25-27 ALMA Board Meeting Tokyo Mar 29 all day B7 MRR Santander, Spain Apr 4 1430 UT ASAC Telecon Apr 19 13:30 UT ALMA Board Telecon May 7-8 all day ASAC f2f meeting Tokyo May 14-16 all day FE optics CDR IRAM May 17 21:30 UT ALMA Board Telecon Jun 27-28 ALMA Board Meeting Santiago Jun 29-30 AMAC f2f Meeting Santiago ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *************************** *****************************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