See new wiki page for NAASC Administrative help: AdminSupport (in top list of NAASC wiki)
Rachel Friesen started yesterday
New timeline for NAASC proposal to NSF: due March 2010 for review May 2010
Recent reports (will post when they become available):
Long Range Plan (2011-2015)
2009Q3 Quarterly Report
FY2010 Program Plan
input to JAO monthly report for August (see Supplemental Material at end of this agenda)
DSO & ARC Implementation review happens Sep 29-30 in Santiago. Will post materials on Sept 7 (when the go out to review panel). Reviewers:
Chair: George Helou (IPAC Executive Director/SSC Deputy Director)
Michitoshi Yoshida (Director of Okayama Astrophysical Observatory)
Roy Booth (Director of Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory)
Jessica Chapman (ATNF Operations Research Program Leader)
ARC trips to Chile in support of CSV started last month. Arranging schedule for following years at NAASC2Chile. Sign up! Tony Remijan is working on FAQ; will distribute soon
Fall will be a VERY BIG hiring push for NAASC - at least 3 astronomers, splatalogue postdoc, multiple Data Analysts, EPO support, Archive support.
User Test 6 (UT6) is on schedule to start in November. UT6 is the primary focus for pipeline testing right now. Pretesting (done by the developer) is expected to finish up this month (this is a critical step in test preparation). The test scope includes calibration, imaging improvements, small mosaics, and will involve outside users. There may be 6-8 testers (very preliminary number). Once a precise test date is firm, Chris will begin identifying testers (hopefully this month). There has also been significant changes to the user documentation, which will certainly result in user feedback to improve it.
Next release (3.0) will be December. This is a VERY IMPORTANT release, as it will be the version used for EVLA early science. Will need LOTS of real-world testing. Developer freeze in Oct, test in Nov.
ObsPrep (incl. ObsTool=OT) (Harvey)
User Test 6.0: test of Phase I June 1-26. Test report and more details available from eSSR wiki
A. Bridger will be visiting Sept 21-26 for CIPT Leads meeting, if anyone wants to meet with him
Casapy simulator (Remy)
ALMA Archive (Carol)
Defining 3 hires that will be posted ASAP - applications developer, DBA, Archive Tech.
API for splatalogue was due to be released July. Status? - Not ready yet
"From Data Cubes to Science: ancillary data and advanced tools for ALMA" meeting is being planned for Oct 5-7 in Cologn. CB, AW, AR will attend. Should have a discussion at this meeting about what the proper subset of spectral lines that should be included in CASA & Obstool for offline use (email from CIPT). Is that on the agenda?
EPO (J. Stoke)
image/media archive s/w will be demo'd. Could be used for all ALMA
Discover channel-level special being pitched.
New multimedia design artist, J. Hellermann, was introduced to the group
Science User Outreach/Webpages (M. Adams/A.Evans)
Interviewing for Web Content Manager; will concentrate on someone with astronomy background
Aaron is working on level 2 science pages. These need to be coordinated with EVLA.
AAS meeting: Jan 5-9 in DC. Will be NRAO Town Hall on Tuesday.
NAASC Workshops (Aaron)
N~175 at Omni, Sept 21-25 2009.
Science program finalized & registration over; waitlist only
ABridger will visit Sep21/22 for CIPT Leads meeting
Additional Supporting Material
Operations-related work done by NAASC staff in August 2009:
hosted and attended SciOpsIPT f2f meeting near Green Bank WV Aug 9-11 (worked on agenda & documentation for SciOps Implementation Review)
Revised NAm ARC Implementation Plan for SciOps Implementation Review
reworked NAASC organizational structure within NRAO to better serve users and interface with other relevant NRAO organizations
Coordinated with CIPT, spectral line affectionadios, and related NRAO orgnizations on plans for ALMA operations for user portal, spectral line databases, software development & testing, pipeline operations
Wrote & revised sections of "DSO & ARC Coordinated Activities" document for for SciOps Implementation Review
Defined Science Program and continued planning for 4th NAASC science conference "Assembly, Gas Content and Star Formation History of Galaxies", to be held Sept 21-24 in Charlottesville VA.
Planning for ANASAC f2f meeting Sept 25-26 2009 - developed preliminary charges & agenda
Reviewed ALMA ops budget
Collected data on planned hardware maintenance activities for 2010+ for BE IPT
planning for October workshop "From Data Cubes to Science: Ancillary Data and Advanced Tools for ALMA"
Casa user support: 10 helpdesk tickets serviced
extensive participation in US Decadal Review activities
recalculated the expected SED for the MW at various redshifts with the 24 hour ALMA sensitivities for Early Science and full array, for presentation at NAASC september conference
implemented the basic machinery to simulate corruptions of synthetic data using the CASA measurement equation calibration heuristics
produced summary of considerations & open issues regarding spectral line OTF mapping with ALMA & distributed to working group
advertised for web application developer, to work with NRAO implementation of ALMA helpdesk & user portal
advertised for next next NAASC scientific staff hires
interviewed web content specialists
started first tour of NAm CSV Liaison to Chile
wrote draft of FAQ for NAASC travel to Chile for CSV support