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