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KartikSheth - 2010-08-26
Early Science Preparation Workshop in house tutorials?
Basics:
- A tutorial to be held at NRAO for the NA community for 2 days with an optional 3rd half day or full day.
- We expect to be able to provide 4--6 people for helping with a tutorial locally (in Charlottesville)
- Our planning guideline is roughly 12 people per NAASC staff member. General Goals of an ES Tutorial and expected time allocation:
Logistics for planning of the workshop
PROPOSED SCHEDULE FOR WORKSHOP
Day 1: Informational / General Session
Goal: Provide participants with a NA User Overview of the
NAASC & ALMA
0900-0915: Welcome to the Omni / logistics about the workshop / announcements
0915-1000: Welcome to the NAASC (Carol Lonsdale) (30 minute talk / 10 minutes for questions)
- Introduction to the NAASC talk will cover our role in North America and in Chile
- Introduce our staff members
- Discuss the services we will provide for the NA community (tutorials, visitor program, helpdesk / communicating with the NAASC).
1000 - 1030: Break
1030-1100: The Current State of ALMA (Al)
- Basics of the status of the array at AOS (number of antennas, bands available, correlator capability, expected developments until ES, modes and configurations available)
- Visual tour of ALMA using ALMA explorer webpage?
- Schedule for ALMA construction and operations to ES and FS
1100-1200: Early Science vs. Full Science and Science Considerations (Crystal)
- Comparison of the expected ES capabilities vs. FS capabilities
- Comparison to other arrays (show this with some examples)
- Timeline to the Call for Proposals and important dates / deadlines
1200 - 1400: Lunch
1400 - 1445: Possible Galactic Science at ES (Scott)
1445 - 1530: Possible ExtraGalactic Science at ES (Kartik)
(Use Wilner and Turner talks + examples in the Primer)
- Overview of some possible science that can be done in ES. Use the science cases in the Primer as examples
- Show SIMData examples
- Practical considersations for planning a science project (FOV, Resolution, Correlator set up, etc.)
- Discuss Full Science vs Early Science differences
1530 - 1600: Break
1600-1700: Overview of User Tools (John Hibbard)
- Overview of Ph1 and Ph2 tools required for proposing / tracking / retrieving ALMA data - do this with screen shots or a very brief live demo but nothing too detailed (OT, PhT, ASA)
- Overview of data analysis tools to be used + pipeline - again give an overview but nothing too detailed here.
Day 2: Observing Tool / Splatalogue
Goal: Provide participants with hands-on experience.
9:00-Noon: The ALMA Observing Tool:
0900-0930: Review Considerations from the previous day (Crystal)
0930-1000: Create a simple proposal (live walk through) (Adam)
- Walk the users through an example of creating a simple continuum pointing proposal
- For all observations - think about how you will calibrate the data, how to choose calibrators, how often to cycle between phase calibrator and source,
- For point sources - think about data rate / sampling timescale, confusion for deep observations, ES vs FS differences
- Convey that users may want to simulate the data to get an idea of what ALMA will see in FS and ES
1000-1030: Break
1030-1115: Creating a complex (realistic) proposal - Continuum (live demo - Scott)
1115-1200: Creating a complex (realistic) proposal II - Spectral line (demo - Kartik)
- Spectral line first pointing and then mapping observation of a real source (use a Primer example?)
- For all observations - think about how you will calibrate the data, how to choose calibrators, how often to cycle between phase calibrator and source,
- For spectral line sources - think about how to set up the correlator - many choices - how to set up the windows to maximize science - continuum vs. spectral line and spectral resolution (use analogy with echelle spectrographs and choice of ordersfor instance).
- Convey that users may want to simulate the data to get an idea of what ALMA will see in FS and ES
- Convey that users may want to first obtain single dish data from existing telescopes / good idea of what they might see
1200-1400: - Lunch
1400-1700: - Users use the tool to make their own proposal(s).
NAASC staff walks around and helps individual users through the process as needed.
1700-1730: - Collect feedback from the users
Day 3: Optional Extra Day to - Use of CASA
Goal: Provide participants with with basic experience for processing ALMA SV Data through CASA
9:00-Noon: CASA (All staff)
- 0900-0930: Overview of CASA - basic philosophy of the package, how to get help etc.
- 0930-1130: Walk through a CASA Wiki Guide for SV data (staff)