BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 28 July 2008 - 11 August 2008 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT************************* --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: A Total Eclipse of the Sun occurs 1 August in the northern regions of Earth. A lunar eclipse follows two weeks later, visible from eastern Europe, eastern Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Get ready for the Perseid meteors, best seen in the wee hours of the morning of 12 August. During mid-month all five of the naked-eye planets will be visible in northern skies, with Venus emergence into the evening sky. SCO (Santiago Central Office): A meeting of the Management IPT occurred at the end of the month. Computing IPT will join the Management Team. A Schedule Control Board will be set up to control the schedule. A Safety Review will be held 8-10 Oct. There will be a Computing Review 17-19 November. Preparations are under way for the Annual ALMA External Review, to be held 9-11 December. The ALMA EPO Group meets in Charlottesville 11-12 August. Rainer Mauersberger arrived in Chile to take up his post as Commissioning Scientist, joining Robert Lucas. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): APEX has reported very low water vapor at Chajnantor around 2008 Aug 4. Twelve antenna pads have received structural concrete. However, there are currently no plans to put antennas on those pads soon. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): Preparations are being made to occupy the Technical Facility Buildings. The adjacent holography tower is finished and outfitting continues. The pedestal for Vertex antenna No 6 has arrived. Work should begin soon on the lay-down area for the European antenna. D. Emerson is finishing up tests of the first Vertex antenna surface. TUC: Optical Pointing Telescope (OPT) CDR is scheduled for August 13-14. ATF: Jack Meadows has been awarded the prestigious NRAO Distinguished Performance Award for his many significant contributions to the NRAO, not least for his efforts in recent years to keep the ATF hardware functioning. Congratulations, Jack! Software version 5.1.1 being debugged, includes total power capabilities needed at the OSF. Science IPT members used the VA antenna to observe a full 2000”x2000” raster scan of the moon. Imaging and the first rough calibration has been performed by developers. NTC (NRAO Technology Center): The 64-antenna correlator first quadrant has been crated for shipping and the first of four batches of crates has departed. Detailed planning for installation and checkout of the first quadrant is essentially complete. Backend Consultant, Jean-Francois Cliché, recently spent 3 weeks in CVille becoming familiar with Photonic LO. He will now be stationed for one year in San Pedro working for Backend on many aspects of the Photonic LO deliverables. NAASC: About 140 participants have registered for the September Workshop. A face-to-face meeting of the EPO group is scheduled for 11-12 Aug at the 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 ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ************************* Aug 11-12 EPO face-to-face Ch'ville Sep 3 1430UT ASAC Telecon Telecon Sep 8-10 Simulation Workshop Grenoble Sep 9-11 ACA 7m antenna PPDR Itami Sep 12 ANASAC f2f meeting Charlottesville Sep 18-19 Band 6 Manufacturing Readiness Rvw Cville Sep 25 ALMA Board Telecon Telecon Sep 25-27 NAASC Workshop Charlottesville Sep 28-29 ASAC face-to-face Charlottesville Nov 17-19 Software Review Santiago Dec 9-11 ALMA Annual External Incremental Review OSF ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ************************* ELVA Memo #126: Accuracy Requirements for EVLA Meteorological Measurements Authors: Bryan Butler and Rick Perley, NRAO Abstract: Analysis of the sensitivity of refraction and phase correction upon meteorological measurements suggests an accuracy in temperature of 0.2 deg C, in dew point of 1.0 deg C, and of relative humidity of 0.8%. View a pdf and ps version of EVLA Memo #126 at: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/evla/memolist.shtml *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST*************************** CARMA Call for Proposals, Semester 2009A Deadline: 17 September 2008 Proposals for observations using CARMA during the period 1 January to 30 June 2009 are due on 17 September 2008. Proposals should be submitted using the electronic form at http://carma.astro.uiuc.edu/proposals/ before 17:00 CDT (22:00 UT) 17 September, 2008. Detailed information, including sensitivities and proposal submission instructions, are available at http://www.mmarray.org . Questions may also be addressed to Dr. Nikolaus Volgenau (volgenau @ mmarray.org). ------------- coming for 2009A: An interactive correlator configuration tool has been developed to aid PIs with proposal preparation and observation set-up. The tool will be available soon on the CARMA website. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Proposals for the Submillimeter Array (SMA). The SMA is currently accepting proposals from principle investigators from within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as well as from the worldwide astronomical community. The proposal deadline is 2008 September 11 for the observing semester 2008 November 16 through 2009 May 15. SMA comprises of eight 6-m antennas operating at 230 GHz, 345 GHz, 420 GHz and 690 GHz bands. More information, technical details, instructions and tools for proposal preparation and submission can be found at http://sma1.sma.hawaii.edu/, the SMA Observer Center web site. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Submillimetre APEX Bolometer Camera (SABOCA), a 39-channel bolometer array operating at 350 micron, will be commissioned on the APEX 12m telescope on Chajnantor in September 2008. ESO now invites short proposals for science verification from the ESO community. All observations will be performed in service mode by the local APEX staff. All proposals should be sent to cdebreuc[AT]eso.org by noon CEST on Monday 15 September 2008. The proposals will be coordinated between the APEX partners. If you submit proposals to multiple partners, please clearly indicate in the proposal how much time you request from each partner. The full call for proposals and further information can be found at http://www.eso.org/sci/activities/apexsv/sabocasv/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SHARCII on the CSO offers a 384 pixel array operating at 350 micron; access is open to all observers. Proposals for observing time on the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory on Mauna Kea for the semester to begin 1st Feb 2009 should be sent by 31st Oct 2008 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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