ALMA

Contact Information Happy New Year

  • 2008-January-8 15:00 UT
  • Duration: 1 hr
  • USA Toll Free Number: 877-874-1919
  • Toll Number: +1-203-320-9891
  • Passcode: 185064
  • Leader: Al Wootten
  • Atendees: L. Testi, R. Hills, J. Cernicharo, R. Laing, S. Aalto, Jose Afonso, F. Gueth, Nyman, Wootten, Kelsey Johnson, Jonathan Williams, John Bally, Andrew Blain, K-I Morita, K. Kohno, Emerson

Old Business

  1. Agenda, Minutes: Agenda of November meeting. Minutes are unavailable. Agenda and Minutes of older telecons may be viewed at the ALMA EDM site Sitescape or more recently at the Board ASAC site.
  2. ASAC Membership

New Business

Tranporters on the Neckar The massive ALMA transporters left the Sheuerle factory and traveled to port at Heilbronn, Germany on 3 and 4 December. There, they were put on on top of a barge pushed by a tug. On 5 Dec they began their journey down the Neckar to the Rhine, then down the Rhine to Antwerp, Belgium. By Dec 11, they had arrived in Antwerp, where they are to be transferred to an overseas vessel for travel to Chile. Scheuerle image.

Equipment going into AOSTB Early view of installation of the Japanese correlator in its room in the Technical Building at the Array Operations Site. See other images and animations. See other images.

  1. Project news/updates
  2. Board Communications
    • ASAC Charges for March, 2008
      • Specific Charges for March, 2008: Supporting Documents
      • 1. Assess the preparation of the ALMA real time, observing, and off-line software for early science. In particular, review the impact of the recommendations of the May 2007 software review and the schedule for the next two years.
      • 2. Review the Calibration Plan and scientific aspects of the plans for Assembly, Integration, Verification testing and for Commissioning. Being mindful of the finite resources (human, financial) available, are changes necessary or desirable for scientific reasons to the plans being implemented?
      • 3. The ALMA Board has charged the project to develop a long term ALMA Development Plan in consultation with the international astronomy community. The plan should set out the scientific context for transformational science with ALMA in 2020, in the era of for example JWST, ELTs and SKA, and the developments necessary to achieve this vision. The ALMA Board views this plan as having the utmost strategic priority, and is coordinating its development across the entire ALMA partnership. The process of generating the ALMA Development Plan should be led by the JAO Project Scientist and the ASAC (with support from the Executives). The first stage (to be completed by the end of 2008) will involve an examination of the scientific drivers by a number of specialist sub-groups, representative of the wider astronomical community, covering the whole field. In time for the Board's April 2008 meeting, the ASAC should identify the scientific themes on which sub-groups will work (for example: star formation, galaxy formation etc) and appoint appropriate Chairs for each subgroup.
      • In order to allow time for the preparation of a response from the Project, it would be very much appreciated if the ASAC’s report could be made available by no later than March 13th.
    • Status of 1-2 February 2008 meeting at Santiago, with optional preceding visit to the ALMA Operations Support Facility, near San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. (Hills)
    • Dates of Board Meetings 2008
  3. Science IPT Report (Wootten, Testi, Morita)
    • Project Scientist Report to ALMA Board (please see document attached at agenda end).
    • ALMA Test Facility:
      • On 2007 Nov 30 a milestone was reached at the ATF. Interferometry under control of ALMA software was improved to the point that interferometric determination of the baseline between the two antennas and pointing will become possible. Kudos to the correlator team J. Pisano, R. Amestica, J. Perez, and D. Guo and to J. Kern, R. Hills, A. Peck, D. Emerson, A. Hales, J. Meadows and R. Ridgeway for their efforts on the hardware, the software and the synthesis of the system despite heavy clouds and rain. (Please see report from Darrel Emerson, attached at agenda end.)
    • RF membrane. Work on a possible replacement for the Goretex material is underway. (See slides from a recent presentation by Ricardo Finger, also attached at agenda end.)
    • Change Control Board items (Hills):
      • Cross-polarization specifications (No 173): CRE reportedly accepted, though CCB notes are not yet available. See note from Hills at the edm discussion, which is linked. Also see Supporting Documents for Charges, above.
    • Current Science IPT Schedule. Current Operations Schedule. IPS Pictorial View(2007 November 30). optical pointing at OSF by Nov 2007; radiometric pointing in early 2008
    • ALMA Science IPT wiki page
  4. Astronomer Outreach: ESO Newsletter New ESO Messenger with Antenna article, New ESO ALMA News New NRAO Newsletter appearing soon. NAOJ News. NRAO ALMA Calendar
    • ESAC Report (Afonso)
    • ANASAC Report (Blain)
    • EASAC Report (Kohno)
  5. AOB
  6. Next Meeting 2008-February-1-12:00 UT Face-to-face, in Santiago.

Science Corner:

Calendar

Official JAO Calendar

Events of Interest

(see also Al's ALMA Biweekly Calendar)

2008
 
 
 
 
 
Day Date Time Event location details
 
Jan 10
 
NRAO Town Hall 12:45pm
Austin Tx AAS
 
 
Jan 15
 
ESAC face-to-face meeting
Garching
 
 
Jan 18
 
ANASAC telecon
---
 
 
Jan 23-24
 
Nutator CDR
ASIAA
 
 
Feb 1-2
 
ASAC face-to-face
Santiago
 
 
Feb 7-8
 
WVR CDR
 
 

Upcoming Meetings

North American URSI meeting Jan 3-6 2008, Boulder

AAS meeting Jan 7-11 2008, Austin, Tx (NRAO/ALMA booth)

IAU Symposium 251 Organic Matter in Space Feb 18-22, Hong Kong

The Cosmic Agitator - Magnetic Fields in the Galaxy 2008 March 26-29 Lexington.

See also NAASC listing

-- AlWootten - 04 Jan 2008

* PSreport_to_Board_07NOV.pdf: Project Scientist Report to Board, November 2007

* ATF_Science_activities_DEC07.pdf: Science Activities at the ATF

* Submillimiter_radomes.pdf: RF Membrane at entrance to receiver cabin
Topic attachments
I Attachment Action Size Date Who Comment
ATF_Science_activities_DEC07.pdfpdf ATF_Science_activities_DEC07.pdf manage 118 K 2008-01-07 - 13:01 AlWootten Science Activities at the ATF
PSreport_to_Board_07NOV.pdfpdf PSreport_to_Board_07NOV.pdf manage 17 K 2008-01-07 - 09:24 AlWootten Project Scientist Report to Board, November 2007
Submillimiter_radomes.pdfpdf Submillimiter_radomes.pdf manage 488 K 2008-01-07 - 13:34 RichardHills RF Membrane at entrance to receiver cabin
Topic revision: r8 - 2008-01-14, 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