BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 7 May 2007 - 21 May 2007 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*************************** ALMA will be featured in the NRAO exhibit at the AAS meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, 27 - 31 May 2007. The ALMA brochure has been updated and will be distributed at the meeting. A video will also be shown. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. Arcturus is shining very high in the southeast--a late-type giant star, it will be among the brightest stars ALMA can see. Saturn rides high in the evening sky, and Jupiter and Mars highlight the morning sky. SCO (Santiago Central Office): Architectural design documents for the permanent office are being evaluated by the technical evaluation committee. The AMAC meeting previously scheduled for late June has been postponed. Space at Cerro Calan for AIV personnel has been approved. The ESO - NAOJ Master Agreement for ALMA Goods and Service has been accepted at ESO. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude):Sky transparency has improved over the fortnight, with a long period of low opacity (<0.5 PWV) as this is written. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): There are 446 people working at the ALMA site. The backup structure for the VertexRSI production antenna has been assembled by the pedestal assembly which was erected at the OSF site on 27 April. Work is finished in the Vertex Site Erection Facility (SEF) area; in this great hall antennas 2 through 32 will be assembled. ATF: Holography tests have continued on the AEC antenna, producing useful images of the surface. Holography acceptance is anticipated very soon. Optical Pointing Telescope (OPT) acceptance should also occur soon (tests continue on the Vertex antenna). It has been proposed to prolong ATF operation until June 2008. AOC: Pipeline test report released. NTC (NRAO Technology Center): Provisional Acceptance In-House for the fifth B7 (.85mm) cartridge was held in Grenoble on May 8 and is ready for shipment to the EU Front End Integration Center (FEIC). Acceptance tests on the 6th B9 (.45 mm) cartridge have been completed in the Netherlands. Funding for the EU FEIC was approved by the ESO Finance Committee. Tests of the first complete ALMA Front End continue at the NA FEIC with measurement of beam patterns. Main feed patterns were measured for holography system #2 at Green Bank. The 2-antenna correlator is 90% assembled and awaits only some mechanical work. HIA: The third B3 (3mm) cartridge to be delivered has been shipped to the NA FEIC. NAASC: The Computing IPT Design Review 5 was held at the NTC and at the NAASC. 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 Sun 6 May - ALMA EPO Working Group meeting in Tokyo. D. Iono and K-I Morita have joined the ALMA EPO Working Group as S. Sakamoto and R. Kawabe have moved to new positions outside ALMA. Mon 7 May - ASAC face-to-face meeting, Tokyo 3:30PM: PSI/ATF telecon Tue 8 May - 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 9 May - Europe's Day 11:00 - Science Software Requirements (SSR) group telecon Thu 10 May - Calibration Group Fri 11 May - Sat 12 May - Sun 13 May - Mon 14 May - FE Optics CDR. IRAM Tue 15 May - FE Optics CDR. IRAM Wed 16 May - 10:30AM: Science IPT Telecon Thu 17 May - 5:30pm: ALMA Board telecon Fri 18 May - Sat 19 May - Sun 20 May - Mon 21 May - Navy Day Holiday (Chile) ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS **************************** Apr 27 18:00 UT ANASAC Telecon May 2 16:00 UT NAASC telecon May 7-8 all day ASAC f2f meeting Tokyo May 14-16 all day FE optics CDR IRAM May 16 14:30 UT Science IPT telecon May 17 21:30 UT ALMA Board Telecon May 23 Software CDR5 Cville Jun 13-14 Nutator PDR Taipei Jun 18-21 NRAO 50th Bday Cville Jun 21-24 Thru Disks 2 Stars Cville Jun 27-28 ALMA Board Meeting Santiago Sep 12-13 B6 CDR Cville ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *************************** *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************** Proposals for Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) observing time will be reviewed by an external peer group committee and should be sent by 31 May for the observing period 1 September through 31 January. http://www.submm.caltech.edu/cso/cso-call.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The deadline for proposals to use NRAO telescopes (GBT, VLA, VLBA) is 1700 EDT Friday, 1 June 2006. *************************************************************************** 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