Minutes for ANASAC Telecon Thursday March 21, 2013

Participants: Al Wootten Carol Lonsdale Phil Jewell Alberto Bolatto Daniela Calzetti John Carpenter Richard Crutcher Kelsey Johnson Leslie Looney Michael Mumma Rachel Osten Douglas Scott

online agenda: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/ALMA/21Mar13Agenda

1. Construction Status (Wootten) - The ALMA inauguration was very successful with good coverage worldwide. The penultimate moment was when the command was given to slew the antennas toward galactic center. Various youtube videos are available of the festivities. Astronauts on the international space station offered their congratulations.

- Operating on two turbines; considerable wet weather during the Altiplanic winter. - However, there was Band 9 weather during inauguration, and the good weather continues. - 55 antennas at the AOS. - A nutator has been delivered, and testing has begun. - The first acceptance of a nutator is expected in April. - All ALMA Front Ends have been completed. An integration facility has been installed at the OSF. - Software - Latest version of software is behind schedule, which is making it difficult to obtain reliable Cycle 1. This has also hampered efforts to commission the pipeline. - Efforts are obviously being placed to get software working so to obtain cycle 1 data, but the finishing construction remains top priority. - Cycle 1 observations will now extend to November/December/January, and Cycle 2 will start in March 2014. This was mentioned previously, but the schedule is now endorsed by the Board.

2. Operations (Wootten) - Flux Density Models for Solar System Bodies in CASA - A memo describing the details of the models and how they work in CASA can be found in ALMA Memo 594.

- Cycle 1 Status - As mentioned above, Cycle 1 is not progressing as fast as hoped, and the length of the cycle will be extended

- Cycle 0 Status - All cycle 0 data for North America PI's has been delivered

- The first ALMA DDT proposal is in the process of being reviewed and forward to the ALMA director - 5% of time is for DDT

3. ASAC Report - The DRAFT official board response to the ASAC report will be delivered in time for the ASAC telecon on April 3.

- Al mentioned that the ALMA Board has agreed that abstracts will become public upon a program being accepted into the high priority queue. This policy will start in Cycle 2.

4. ALMA Development (Wootten) - The North American Development Workshop is scheduled in Charlottesville for April 18, 2013.

- The workshop will be held by video and audio links

- The Call for Studies will be issued in May 2013

- The NAASC will ask the ANASAC for referees once the proposals are in

- There will be $1M allocated for studies, with a maximum of $200k per proposal. Dick Crutcher: Has sequestration affected the development program?
Phil
He does not expect the program to be impacted since the money has already been set aside.

- Kelsey: How is the call being advertised?
Al
The call will be announced in the NRAO e-news, in an email to investigators who submitted a previous proposal, and in a general email announcement

5. NAASC during Early Science (Lonsdale) - A short-term scientist position is currently being advertised. The position is for 2 years to help with data reduction and preparing schedule blocks.

- About 20 people attended the most recent data reduction workshop. Most of the participants were from the local area (Virgina). The workshop coincided with the HST proposal deadline, which may have impacted the attendance.

- AAS splinter session on Cycle 2 is in preparation. Tony Beasley is giving a plenary talk on ALMA at the AAS

- For Cycle 1, contact Scientists have been assigned for the second batch of projects and the PIs have been contacted. 28 Cycle 1 projects are ready to be observed.

- Pipeline development is impacted by the software delays since no reliable Cycle 1 data has been delivered.

- Cycle 2 preparation: NAASC is looking for additional outreach materials from other arcs. Gerald Moriarty-Schieven has produced a public video (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm8WtLo9C9Q&feature=youtu.be) on the large angular scales and maximum recoverable scales with ALMA. Comments from the ANASAC are welcome.

6. Astronomer Outreach (Lonsdale, Wootten) - The NAASC is planning a series of short webinars focused on specific topics

- The NAASC will support more community days this spring/summer, but not as many as that were held for Cycle 0. Rachel: Will the community days be run by NRAO or the community? Carol : They will primarily be community led as with pre-Cycle 0.

7. Date of next telecon - Because of a conflict with the ALMA development workshop, we need pick a new date for the next ANASAC telecon (currently scheduled for Thursday April 18).

- Al will ask Lyndele to produce a doodle poll so that the ANASAC can choose between Wednesday Apr 17 and Friday April 19 and early the following week.

-- AlWootten - 2013-03-22
Topic revision: r1 - 2013-03-22, AlWootten
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