BIWEEKY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 9 Feb - 23 Feb 2009 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT************************* Fabio Biancat-Marchet has assumed the post of Deputy ALMA Project Manager at ESO. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 NRAO eNews: http://www.nrao.edu/news/newsletters/ Sky: Comet Lulin has reached closest approach to the Sun and will grace morning skies as it approaches Earth on its way back to the chilly outer solar system. Venus grows brilliant as the evening star--through modest telescopes one can make out its thinning crescent in the coming months. SCO (Santiago Central Office): Tom Wilson has arrived to join the Science Team. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): To date, 52 foundation have received structural concrete. Requests for proposals for the construction of roads, fiber and electric lines to interconnect them are imminent. 26 foundations have achieved provisional acceptance. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): Construction will begin on three new antenna foundations in the area of the OSF Technical Facility. There are nine Vertex and four Melco antennas on the site, one of each at the OSF going through ALMA testing. There are also two front ends on site, one in the Melco antenna and one to be installed in the Vertex antenna shortly. Discussion have begun on the design for construction of the Residence at the OSF. Two WVR (Water Vapor Radiometer) Optical relays arrived at the OSF. NTC: There is a nearly continuous flow of front end parts into and out of the NTC. For example, three Band 8 ().6mm) X6 multipliers were received and successfully tested; these will be shipped to the Band 8 group soon. Also, Cartridges bodies B6 (1.3mm) -016 to -018 arrived from RAL. Band 9 Cartridge #10 arrived at the EA FEIC from SRON. Testing and board burn-in using the second quadrant continued. All TFB cards have been installed. AOC: Antenna Articles (AA) AA3 and AA4along with other equipment shipped should arrive at OSF. A calendar of NAASC events may be found at: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/alma_calendar.shtml *************************************************************************** DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ************************* Feb 11-12 Management IPT f2f Feb 12 Band 3 Manufacturing Readiness Review, HIA Feb 19 EU FEIC PAI for engineering model Front End. Mar 11-13 ALMA Board meeting Mar 18 Band 4 (2mm) PAI NAOJ Mar 18 Band 8 (.6mm) PAI NAOJ Mar 24-27 ALMA and ELTs: A Deeper, Finer View of the Universe, ESO Apr 15-16 NA FEIC Operational Readiness Review (Charlottesville) Apr 16 Herschel launch Apr 20-22 20th Intl Symp. on Space THz Technology, Charlottesville Jun 8-12 mm and submm Astronomy at High Angular Resolution, ASIAA ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ************************* *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST*************************** Several ALMA positions are available at the JAO (Santigo). Details for all positions may be viewed at: http://www.alma.cl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CARMA Proposals Due Observing time with CARMA is allocated in response to proposals judged on scientific merit. The current Call for Proposals for general and target of opportunity (TOO) time is for observations covering the period July 1, 2009 - November 30, 2009. Proposals are due on March 18. Proposals requesting Director's discretionary time may be submitted at any time. See: http://www.mmarray.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SMA Proposals Due Following the direction of the SMA steering committee, the CfA SMA Time Allocation Committee (TAC) solicits proposals for observations in the 230, 345, 400, and 690 GHz bands for the period 2009 May 16 - 2009 Nov 15. The deadline for submitting proposals is 2009 March 5 (16:00 EST = 11:00 HST). In addition, large (legacy) proposals must be preceded by a brief "No tice of Intent" by 2009 February 26, 16:00 EST. See http://sma1.sma.hawaii.edu/call.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Several ALMA positions are available at the JAO (Santigo). Details for all positions may be viewed at: http://www.alma.cl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The deadline for submission of observing proposals on IRAM telescopes, both the interferometer and the 30m, is 12 March 2009, 17:00 CET (UT + 1 hour) The scheduling period extends from 1 June - 30 Nov 2009. Proposals should be submitted through our web-based submission facility. Instructions can be found on our web page at URL: http://www.iram.fr/GENERAL/submission/submission.html *************************************************************************** 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