BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 9 October 2006 - 23 October 2006 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT**************************** Two American astronomers who used radio astronomical techniques to develop evidence on the origin os the universe and how it spawned galaxies were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. The researchers, John Mather of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and George Smoot of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, will split the prize. Dr. Mather served for many years on the ALMA Management Advisory Committee, or AMAC. ALMA expects to transform our understanding of how galaxies developed in the very early universe through its orders of magnitude improvement in sensitivity and resolution over existing instruments at the wavelengths at which the radiataion from these young galaxies peaks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Members of the ANASAC met in Charlottesville to discuss their response to charges, now being prepared. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Fifth IRAM Millimeter Interferometry School was held October 2-6, 2006 in Grenoble, France. The capacity crowd of more than five dozen learned the basic elements of millimeter interferometry. A session on ALMA was included. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The opening ceremony of AMiBA (Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy) was held at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii on 2006 October 3. NRAO Director Fred Lo attended the ceremony. AMiBA, a millimeter interferometer, was constructed by ASIAA (Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics) and National Taiwan University for polarimetry of microwave background radiation and detection of distant clusters of galaxies using the Sunyaev ZelÕdovich effect. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Sky: Comet Swan: http://cometography.com/lcomets/2006m4.html is a naked eye/binocular object now. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Tender documentation is being prepared for antenna foundation construction. The architectural finishes, mechanical and electrical installations work for the AOS TB is ongoing. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): VVMO started excavation works at the OSF and has scheduled to complete those by mid of October. Construction of the Assembly, Integration and Verification (AIV) building started. Site preparation is under way for the holography tower for which construction began 2006 Oct 2. Currently there are approximately 225 persons working at the site of which approximately 134 uses the ALMA and ContractorÕs lodging facilities, which are fully occupied. Bids were opened for the ALMA Camp and Contractors Camp extensions. Electrical cabling is ongoing for the Vertex and Melco site erection facilities, finishing in late October. TUC: Emerson held further holography meetings and is arranging manpower for ATF holography tests. Holdaway continues to develop the plan for the larger array configurations. NAASC: Vertex antenna invar cone fully completed and en route to the Kilgore, Tx antenna integration facility. The yoke and support cone are in the final machining process. Nutator bid documents are at NSF awaiting approval. New NA ALMA postdoc Antonio Hales arrived in Charlottesville. NTC: Alain Baudry visiting week of 16 Oct. A successful provisional acceptance in-house (PAI) review for the first Band 6 (1.3mm) cartridge was held Sep 27. Measurements of the B6 cartridge installed in cryostat #2 continued controlled for the first time by the measurement system hardware and software. Design Review for the Line Length Corrector and the LO Photonic Receiver is scheduled for CÕVille, December 14. Various hardware, firmware and software upgrades supporting the move of the 2-antenna correlator from Socorro to the ATF are ready. All card components of first 3 production Tunable Filterbank (TFB) cards have been assembled. HIA: The second Band 3 (3mm) cartridge to be delivered is in acceptance testing. AOC: Work on readying system for prototype system integration (PSI) at the ATF continues with improvements made to the Local Oscillator Reference Receiver (LORR). Move to the ATF now scheduled for Oct 29. FLOOG fringe tracking tests proceeding well, understanding progressing. ATF: AEM Production antenna PPDR date is planned for 13-15 of December. AEC Consortium starting work on maintenance and restart of the long-stationary AEC antenna. Official training to start on 2006 Oct 23. Verification of hardware and software of the first holography system at the ATF (on the Vx prototype antenna) made progress. Work continued on system #2. ESO: The CfT for the design and prototyping of the amplitude calibration device has been extended to 2006 Oct 27 after requests from bidders. Final preparation for delivery and acceptance of the first Band 9 (,65mm) pre-production cartridge leads to the PAI meeting on 2006-10-17/18 at SRON in Groningen, After receiving new information on the WVR tests at the SMA priority was given to continue the SMA tests. More than five dozen attended the Fifth School on Millimeter Interferometry held in Grenoble; a session was devoted to ALMA. *************************************************************************** DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT ) see https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar Mon 9 Oct - US + Chile: Columbus Day Japan: Health and Sports Day All Day: Workshop on water vapor radiometry, Wettzell, Bavaria Tue 10 Oct All Day: Workshop on water vapor radiometry, Wettzell, Bavaria 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 11 Oct AM: Workshop on water vapor radiometry, Wettzell, Bavaria Science IPT face-to-face meeting, ESO. Thu 12 Oct Science IPT face-to-face meeting, ESO. Fri 13 Oct Sat 14 Oct CARMA (Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy) FIRST CALL FOR PROPOSALS Sun 15 Oct Mon 16 Oct Tue 17 Oct All Day: B9 PAI meeting, SRON, Groningen 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 18 Oct All Day: B9 PAI meeting, SRON, Groningen Thu 19 Oct Fri 20 Oct Sat 23 Oct Sun 24 Oct Mon 25 Oct ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS **************************** Oct 8 - 11 all day WVR Workshop Wettzell, Bavaria Oct 29 Move of PSI to ATF November 8-10 all day ALMA Board Meeting Madrid Nov 13-16 all day Science with ALMA: a new era for Astrophysics Madrid Dec 13-14 all day AEM PPDR ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS **************************** ALMA Memo No. 556 Observational Modes Supported by the ALMA Correlator R. Escoffier, G. Comoretto, C. Broadwell, R. Lacasse, J. Webber, A. Baudry 2006-08-26 Observational modes including multi-resolution operation supported by the ALMA correlator hardware and firmware are presented. View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #556 at: http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma556/memo556.pdf ******************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************** ALMA PROJECT SCIENTIST The ALMA Project Scientist is responsible for ensuring that ALMA is constructed and commissioned in such a manner as to meet the scientific requirements of the ALMA Agreement. As a Key Staff Member of the JAO, the Project Scientist will contribute to decision making, overall policy development and strategic planning. The Project Scientist reports directly to the ALMA Director and interacts closely with the Project Manager and Project Engineer. Please see: http://www.nrao.edu/administration/personnel_office/careers.shtml#CL0005 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CARMA (Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy) FIRST CALL FOR PROPOSALS Deadline: 14 October 2006 Proposals for observations using CARMA at 3 mm in the C and D configurations (beamsizes 1.8 and 4 arcseconds respectively) during the period 1 January to 30 June 2007 are due on 14 October 2006. CARMA is the merger of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory millimeter array and the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association array, and comprises 15 antennas on a 2200m elevation site, Cedar Flat, in the Inyo Mountains of California. CARMA is operated by the Universities of California (Berkeley), Illinois, and Maryland, and the California Institute of Technology, under a cooperative agreement with the University Radio Observatory program of the National Science Foundation. Approximately 30% of the observing time will be awarded to PIs outside the partner universities. Proposals should be submitted using the electronic form at http://carma.astro.uiuc.edu/proposals/ before 17:00 CDT 14 October, 2006. Detailed information, including sensitivities and proposal submission instructions, may be found at the CARMA website, http://www.mmarray.org. Questions may also be addressed to Dr. Douglas Bock (dbock@mmarray.org). There will in the future be twice yearly calls for 1 and 3 mm in all antenna configurations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jansky Fellowship The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) announces the 2007 postdoctoral Jansky Fellowship program that provides outstanding opportunities for research in astronomy. The Jansky Fellows formulate and carry out investigations either independently or in collaboration with others within the wide framework of interests of the Observatory. Prior radio experience is not required and multi-wavelength projects leading to a synergy with NRAO instruments are encouraged. The NRAO also encourages applications from candidates with interest in radio astronomy instrumentation, computation, and theory. Please see: http://www.nrao.edu/administration/directors_office/jansky-postdocs.shtml ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Asian Radio Astronomy Winter School Second Circular Asian Radio Astronomy Winter School January 22-26, 2007 National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan Registration is open for the Asian Radio Astronomy Winter School. Please visit the on-line registration page on our web site (http://vsop.mtk.nao.ac.jp/RAWS2007/), and fill out all items in the registration form. The deadline for registration *with financial support* is October 6, 2006. The final deadline for registration is November 3, 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