ALMA North American Science Advisory Committee

ALMA; ALMA North American Science Advisory Committee Telecon Telecon meeting June 18, 2010

Contact

Information for those calling in.
* Call date: 2010-07-23 03:00 pm EDT or 19:00 UT (Friday) * Duration: 1 hr
* USA Number: 1-866-675-5385
* Outside USA Number: +1 517 444 6916
* Passcode: 8445333#
* Leaders: A. Blain, C. Lonsdale



---

* Attendees:

Topics

  1. Old Business The enhanced Agenda from last meeting is available. minutes from the June telecon are available.
  2. Response to the March 2010 ASAC Report
  3. The document describing the Proposal Review process has been separated into two parts as ASAC suggested. The top level document has been agreed by the Board and will be circulated after a few final tweaks. The more detailed implementation plan is being worked on and should be ready for circulation by the beginning of September.

Second Array of Five at the AOS

Five ALMA antennas in operation at the AOS, seen in this photo taken by Al Wootten on 2010 July 14.

Discussion Items

  1. Status of ALMA Construction
    • Brief status report. Here is the CSV CSV_status.pdf status report to the Board from a few weeks ago. Full Project Reports for previous months can be found in ALMA Monthly Reports. See Science_Milestones_30june2010.pdf for 'the big picture' as of end of June.
    • DV01,DV02, DV03, DV05 and PM02 are at the AOS. DV04 should become the sixth antenna at the AOS (pad 702) next week.
      • There are presently four antennas at the OSF (DV04, DV06, DV07 and DV08). We are operating DV04 and DV07 as a test interferometer. DV06 and DV08 are going through the AIV process.
      • PM03 has been relocated to the Melco camp for upgrades to the thermal insulation on the receiver cabin.
      • The antenna locations at the AOS are shown here. This "Initial Commissioning Array" configuration has baselines of from about 18 to 45m. This allows good tests of e.g. antenna performance at different elevations. We expect to have 8 antennas at the AOS in August.
      • A paper summarizing the status of construction and commissioning was given at SPIE in San Diego
  2. NSF Review of NRAO/AUI Proposal for ALMA Operations
  3. ALMA: Extending the Limits of Astrophysical Spectroscopy in Victoria, British Columbia, 15-17 January 2011
    • Pre-registration is open!
    • The announcement is posted off the NRAO main science page and will be the leading announcement in the upcoming NRAO eNews.
    • Occurring just after the 217th AAS meeting, which includes several sessions of interest.
      • Observing with ALMA - Special Session- 217th AAS Meeting Jan 12, 2011 | 2:00 PM Seattle, WA
      • NRAO Town Hall - 217th AAS Meeting Jan 11, 2011 | 6:30 PM Seattle, WA
      • Early Science with the EVLA - Special Session - 217th AAS Meeting Jan 12, 2011 | 10:00 AM Seattle, WA
  4. Face-to-Face meeting: Charges and preliminary discussion
    • Informative weekly meetings.
    • Information on the next face-to-face meeting in Charlottesville 2010 Sep 13-14
      • The meeting will take place at the NAASC and will begin the morning of 13 Sep with a meeting with the NRAO Director, Fred Lo.
      • Arrangements will be made and information on them circulated by Holly Foster (hfoster, x0308) at NRAO.
      • The CSV status review (7/8 Oct at the OSF) and the readiness review for Science Operations (11/12 Oct in Santiago respectively) will take place immediately before the ASAC meeting (13/14 Oct, also in Santiago). The plan is that three members of the ASAC will attend each of these meetings.
  5. Personnel changes
    • Holly Foster has assumed the position of NAASC Administrative Assistant in Charlottesville.
    • Morita-san will be taking a new role as System Verification Scientist at the JAO from 1st August and will be moving to Chile.
    • Masao Saito, who has played a leading role in the ALMA-J antenna team and has now joined the EA ARC, will take over as Project Scientist for that region.
    • Mark McKinnon is now ALMA Project Manager for NA and ALMA Project Director for NRAO.
  6. Astronomer Outreach: Main JAO website, ESO Newsletter, NAOJ News, NRAO Newsletter, NRAO ALMA Calendar.
  7. AOB

Science Corner

van Dishoeck ALMA Presentation SPIE2010 (movie)

Events of Interest

2010
 
 
 
 
 
 
Day
Date
Time
Event
location
details
 
 
Jul 15
 
ASAC Meeting
telecon
 
 
 
Jul 13-18
 
NAASC Operations Review
Chile
 
 
Sep 3
 
Santiago Central Office Ceremony
SCO, 10:30am
 
 
Sep 13-14
 
ANASAC f2f
 
 
Oct 7-8
 
CSV Status Update
Chile
 
 
Oct 11-12
 
SciOps Readiness Review
Chile
 
 
Oct 13-14
 
ASAC f2f
 
Santiago
 
 
Oct 25-28
 
Annual ALMA External Review
Chile
 
 
Nov 10
 
Observatory Readiness Review
Chile
 
 
Nov 16-18
 
ALMA Board Meeting
Chile
 
 
Nov 22
 
Date for decision on ES
Chile
 
 
Jan 9-13
 
217th AAS Meeting
Seattle
 
 
Jan 15-17
 
ALMA Workshop
Victoria
 

Upcoming Meetings

Molecules in Galaxies 26-30 July 2010, Oxford UK

The 5th Zermatt ISM Symposium: Conditions and impact of star formation: New results with Herschel and beyond 19-24 September 2010, Zermatt, Switzerland

Stormy Cosmos: The Evolving Interstellar Medium: Recent Progress from Space IR/Submm 1 - 4 November 2010 Pasadena, CA Hosted by the NASA Herschel Science Center, Spitzer Science Center

The Impact of Herschel Surveys on ALMA Early Science Garching, November 17-19, 2010

Observing with ALMA--Early Science IRAM, 29 Nov - 1 Dec 2010

217th AAS Seattle, WA Observing with ALMA - Special Session- January 12, 2011 2:00 PM

15-17 Jan 2011 Workshop ALMA: Extending the Limits of Astrophysical Spectroscopy in Victoria

The Molecular Universe May 30 - June 3, 2011 Toledo, Spain

-- AlWootten - 2010-07-15

Topic attachments
I Attachment Action Size Date Who Comment
7733-38_SPIE_ALMA.pdfpdf 7733-38_SPIE_ALMA.pdf manage 1 MB 2010-07-22 - 16:38 AlWootten Hills, Kurz, Peck SPIE paper on ALMA
ACA_pad_occupation_7.pdfpdf ACA_pad_occupation_7.pdf manage 38 K 2010-07-23 - 15:10 AlWootten Current AOS Pad Occupation
AEDM_2010-080-O_Response_to_ASAC.pdfpdf AEDM_2010-080-O_Response_to_ASAC.pdf manage 36 K 2010-07-22 - 16:27 AlWootten Response to Mar 2010 ASAC Report
CSV_status.pdfpdf CSV_status.pdf manage 103 K 2010-07-22 - 16:40 AlWootten CSV Status Report Late June.
Science_Milestones_30june2010.pdfpdf Science_Milestones_30june2010.pdf manage 25 K 2010-07-22 - 16:29 AlWootten Science Milestones 2010 June 30
Topic revision: r9 - 2010-07-29, AlWootten
This site is powered by FoswikiCopyright © by the contributing authors. All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
Ideas, requests, problems regarding NRAO Public Wiki? Send feedback