ALMA Science Advisory Committee
Draft Minutes for ASAC Telecon 7 August 2000
Conference Date: August 07-2000 (Monday)
Participants: Bachiller, Brown, Cox, Crutcher, Emerson, Evans, Fuller (guest), Guilloteau, Hasegawa, Ishiguro, Nakai, Rafal, Sakamoto, van Dishoeck, Walmsley, Welch, Wilson, Wootten, Yamamoto, Yun
The draft minutes for 10 July were accepted as proposed, with addition of some attendees.
1. News
R. Brown reported that a negotiating team would head to Chile in the Fall to negotiate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The team consists of Cesarsky, Corbett, Freitag, Giacconi, vanden Bout and Dickman. The Joint Receiver Development Group will meet in Cambridge, England, on 7-8 September 2000.2. 28 July Monbusho review
M. Ishiguro summarized the recent review. This provided a good start for LMSA/ALMA with support from outside the field of astronomy. A working group at Monbusho will discuss the review before the end of the year over about three meetings, with a report due in December. Funding might be possible in mid-2001 to mid-2002. An ALG meeting will occur on 11 September 2000 in Berkeley. The ASAC ALG liaison members asked whether they should plan on attending this session. A reply is pending.Details of the arrangements made by Jack are
here.
HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS:
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FAX 510/486-8336
The Hotel Durant is 1 block South of the campus and is no more than a
ten minute walk from Campbell Hall where the meeting will take place.
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When reserving, please refer to the "ALMA Scientific Advisory
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Hotel Durant will continue to accept reservations on a space
available, rate available basis. Overnight parking for hotel guests
is subject to a $7 per vehicle, per night charge.
The Hotel Durant is within easy walking distance of many restaurants
and shops. You can also get a campus map from the main desk.
A draft agenda was discussed. Modified according to suggestions received,
it can be found here. This agenda has been disseminated to Division
Heads in the U. S. Some issues discussed:
Calibration: Memos by Mangum, Guilloteau and Plambeck are relevant.
MMA Memo No. 318 by Mangum has appeared subsequent to the telecon. WVR: It was mentioned that Hills plans two 183 GHz WVR prototypes
utilizing different technologies. Richer should be able to update us on this.
Woody continues efforts at OVRO to upgrade the existing WVR system there to
achieve better sensitivity. He will present an update at the Berkeley meeting.
Canada is trying to build a second device. The IR device is planned for
placement on the JCMT/SMA eventually, with its output to be correlated with
radiosonde. The Canadian 183 GHz WVR is essentially complete. The CSO
radiometer will be moved to an SMA antenna for interferometry tests in the
future. Configurations: Yun will report on simulations. Guilloteau noted that
inclusion of pointing errors overwhelms any difference in array style, in
the first round of simulations. Inclusions of various types of errors is
of fundamental importance. Correlator: Wootten is trying to arrange a presentation. Webber will be
at the JRDG meeting. Passband calibration: Gurwell brought up this issue in an email. Emerson
will give a report on the first order draft plan to use the photonic LO for
this. Site: Wootten will give an update on the site testing status, and on
frequency protection and outreach activities. Test Interferometer: Darrel will give a report on this. 4. Site News. The Volcano Lascar erupted on 20 July 2000. A geological
report may be found here in Spanish along with a poor translation.
Here is a photo of the Lascar eruption taken from San Pedro de Atacama
about half an hour afer the initial eruption on 20 July. (I can probably
generate more accurate timing if necessary)
Combination of 2 Hasselblad 80mm frames taken by Bob
Fosbury (attending a conference on Gravitational Lensing)...
Bryan Mason and Tim Pearson were at the CBI observatory (adjacent to the
ALMA site on Chajnantor) and obtained
pictures which are on Mason's
CBI page .
Marc Sarazin posted another nice image taken by GOES8 (IR channel), 35min
after eruption:
ESO image shows the ash fall from above.
There were no effects (ash fall, etc.) at Chajnantor.
5. Next Teleconference The face-to-face meeting supersedes the September telecon.