MINUTES ANASAC 02/18/2011
Present: Al Wootten, Carol Lonsdale, Alberto Bolatto, Andrew Baker,
David Neufeld, Mike Mumma, John Carpenter, Davil Wilner, Leslie
Looney, Doug Johnstone, Debbie Padgett, Neal Evans, Rachel Osten
Hsien Shang, maybe others
1) Report on ALMA progress at Chile (Wootten)
Terrible weather at the site, rain and ice. Settled the last few
days. Polarization team on site. Discovered problems with swapped
correlator outputs, etc. Observations last night look good. Work in
progress. By the end of the polarization campaign expect to have
polarization capability. Moved to a new computer release for operating
software, needed a lot of observation script rewriting. ES call still
scheduled for end of March, but 4-6 weeks lost due to weather. DV01
will return to high site after refurbishment, on extended
baseline. Expecting in April central array pads will be ready. Designs
for ES array proposed, still being evaluated with 105m baselines,
still working on the 250m average baseline array. Science verification
call went well, circulated in AAS meeting, NRAO newsletter. Designing
schedule block to look at TW Hydra, and for a NGC3256. More blocks to
come. European antenna surface being worked on, as well as pointing.
DV12 fully accepted (first one!). Discussion of NSF budget
proposal. Full funding for
NAASC operations accepted at the guideline
level. Congratulations to the
NAASC.
2) Update on OT testing (Lonsdale)
Mostly it went smoothly. Relatively small hiccup with load test, bug
found and fixed. Some feedback from people who participated.
3) Update on
NAASC operations (Lonsdale)
Two postdoc jobs. Kimberly Scott to join in Sept, second offer
out. Good shortlist. CVS postdoc interviews to start. Most of activity
related to IT3 and outreach.
4) Update on ALMA community days (Lonsdale)
Efforts led by Kartik Sheth. Resounding success on
proposals. Scheduled 9 events. First one in Honolulu. Philadelphia,
Pasadena, Baltimore, Boston, Gainesville, Iowa City, Tucson, New
York. More tutorials in C'ville. More in Canada (Toronto,
etc). Transitioning to data reduction workshops after ES proposals.
5) Call for ALMA development proposals (Wootten)
Still under development (submitted to NSF and major partners, drafting
management plan after NSF request). Workshop set for March 21-22 in
auditorium. 40 participants currently registered, although heavily
weighted toward local participation. Goal is to develop better
understanding of what the community wants from NRAO and how NRAO
should interface with the community. It was noted that the time line
is very tight, and that the ANASAC would have liked to be
involved/informed of the decision.
6) Letter to NSF (Bolatto)
Letter from ANASAC is still being considered. Note statement about
ALMA not funding observing proposals in MREFC budget page
20. Suggestion by Neal: collect statistic about PI plans for funding
the data processing and interpretation of successful observing
proposals. Specifically, part of the proposal stage 2 (after proposal
accepted) is to say what support you have (and need) for data analysis
and interpretation. This would allow us to address the suggestion
that this support will come from existing NSF and NASA grants.
Discussion about perhaps engaging the bigger community into
this. Maybe something to discuss at a future ALMA workshop?
7) Brief report on visit to Chile (Bolatto)
Attended ALMA workshop at Calan, with good community
participation. Attended Chile community day at ALMA building, with
presentations by Louis Ball and other people. Important discussions in
the Chilean community about how the Chilean time will be awarded, and
how the Chilean data will be accessed given that there is no ARC in
Chile. Likely result is that they will heavily rely on the
NAASC given
proximity, hour zone, language considerations. Plans to embed Chilean
participants in the
NAASC are in the works. It is important to make
sure there are no negative impacts on the NA community.
8) ASAC activities (Johnstone, Baker)
March 1st meeting in Santiago. Still no charges. Will pass news onto
ANASAC as they become available. Focus will likely be the readiness review.
9) Next ALMA workshop (Bolatto)
Four topics proposed. Mike Mumma made the point that time is
short. Discussion about the future workshop to be carried forward
through email.
--
AlWootten - 2011-04-21